brand worlds

Some people's idea of merch is Trump’s gold high-tops. Merch as a status symbol. Merch as a subgenre. Merch as a style statement. Merch as an identity marker. Merch as something of waning cultural relevance.

Whereas in the past a person wearing a Nirvana t-shirt was probably a fan of the band’s music, today no such guarantee exists (and many more shirts are sold). This often precludes one of the original purposes of merch, a signaling of belonging to a certain (sub)culture.

Still, the meaning-making of merch has not disappeared, but merely shifted. A

• Charli’s curation of the Brat collection at Roxy Cinema celebrated the tenets of a “BRAT” lifestyle, dimensionalizing the project beyond a one-off album, and turning it into a lifestyle and a mindset.

Rather than being a retail’s side gig, modern merch has become its main act. Merch has always been a high-margin moneymaker, so a subtle but all-encompassing transformation of retail’s operating principle into merch makes economic sense. Through the process of transubstantiation from a youth culture artifact to a killer business model merch has