Sublime

I admired the serene brook that flowed in the Undefeated store on La Brea and the skate bowl inside Supreme’s new Fairfax location. These artistic touches were conversation pieces that had nothing to do with selling clothes and everything to do with relaying a message.

An attempt to launch a lower-priced, streetwear-inflected line, PSWL, was at odds with the main collection, and fell flat with customers.

Even in streetwear, young brands opt to sell directly to their kids through their online stores. They fail to appreciate, though, how a store’s stocking of your brand acts as a cosign of your product to out-of-reach locales.

I’ve long admired how streetwear brand Supreme has built a brand centered around hyper-exclusivity and downtown cool, to the point where consumers are willing to camp outside their stores and crash their websites.

In December, a fashion startup called Scarce started selling used luxury clothing in the form of mystery boxes, following in the footsteps of a British startup, Heat, which launched with the same concept in late 2019. Both companies claim they have managed to avoid a high return rate — one of the biggest potential pitfalls of a mystery box sales mo... See more