Let Them Wear Madhappy!
The economics of streetwear used to be quite simple. Clothing brands like Supreme that released limited pieces were the currency, and clout was what this currency got you. In an earlier article, I wrote about how this speculative bubble was bound to pop. Flexing morphed from a signifier of cultural capital, a.k.a. clout, to an ostentatious display of wealth, where wearing Yeezy's demonstrated you had the money to purchase them on StockX for three times their original retail price.
For a while, this metamorphosis from "if you know you know" cultural capital to a flexing of wealth was enough to keep the economic system going. However, an inflection point was hit at some point in the late 2010s. Flexing wealth felt tantamount to implicitly supporting economic inequality. In the late 18th century, nobles feasting on croquembouche towers and poached truffles were indicators of an impending French Revolution. Hypebeasts dishing out $200+ for bricks (yes, literal bricks) embossed with SUPREME was the red flag that disenchantment in flex culture was coming fast.
Fast-forward a few years, and we're here. Stores that have perverted the original ideology behind streetwear communities have been looted and burned, and it's no longer cool to flex Yeezy's or the new Supreme collection. With the exception to the cursed demographic that worships day-trading TikTok influencers, Jeff Bezos is rightfully demonized for the poor working conditions he propagates to fuel his already astronomical net-worth. For the first time in history, NBA players have refused to play entire games as an act of protest to another killing of an unarmed Black man.
Flexing new Dior Jordans copped off StockX on Instagram would be deplorable in the current sociopolitical climate. Even YouTube sensations that have made a career off of flaunting their wealth by burning Nintendo Switches have pivoted to producing content that shows them giving money away. But where does this leave the state of clothing?
Brands have begun to shift toward genuine, impact-driven apparel. I'm not talking about the infamous $710 "Feminist" T-shirts Dior released in 2017, but companies whose original ethos was centered around a project to make the world better. Brenden Babenzien was one of the trailblazers in this space who saw the writing on the wall earlier than most. After a long career at Supreme as the company's creative director from 2002 to 2015, he formed his own company, Noah New York. The brand's mission is clear from a quick perusal of its website—pay respect to the Earth's environment, stop mindless consumption, and look fresh as hell doing it.
Madhappy is the newest flavor of mission-driven brands to take off. Worn by Cardi B, Gigi Hadid, and numerous NBA players, it wouldn't be hyperbolic to call it the brand of 2020. After opening several vibrant and experiential pop-up stores in Aspen, Miami, and LA, LVMH—the same fashion house that boasts Fenty, Louis Vuitton, and Céline—invested $1.8 million into the company in late 2019.
Originally, Madhappy was formed by college students as a response to the culty and snobbish state of the streetwear industry. Walking into a trendy, high-end store is indeed unsettling at times—people of color fear they won't be taken seriously, their clothes will signal they don't belong, or in some instances, that they'll have the cops called on them for meritless allegations of theft.
Whereas 2015 streetwear aficionados had a constant jaw-clenching scowl of melancholic dismay plastered on their faces, Madhappy's colorful ethos is reflected in its very namesake. One of the company's founders, Peiman Raf, explains that the name takes inspiration from Inside-Out and encapsulates the idea that we all have moments where we are struggling and moments where we are thriving. The brand has built out resources to educate consumers on mental health, and its iconic melted popsicle color palette embodies a sense of ease and optimism. Madhappy is comfy-core at its finest, defenestrating the idea that great fashion requires suffering or rigid apparel. Their signature hoodies, sweatshirts, and sweatpants are manufactured with outstanding quality and are immensely pragmatic in a work-from-home world.
Nevertheless, Madhappy has had a few hiccups, including the cultural appropriation of Navajos, and there are still questions that impact-driven companies have to answer. The company's mission of promoting a sense of optimism and a healthy mind are noble, but this begs the question of mental health for whom? While the company has gone to great lengths to be transparent about its made-in-LA manufacturing processes, does this justify a hoodie that'll set you back close to $200? Perhaps the answer is that this is simply the price required to pay laborers fair wages. But, even in that case, a problem remains. Supreme's feature of scarcity functionally bracketed people out who didn't have to the know-how of navigating drop-days, whereas Madhappy's literal pricing brackets out poor folk who frequently need mental health support the most. That being said, it would be unfair to place all the responsibility on this one brand to revolutionize classism in fashion (in fact, they've provided donations to charities and supported restaurants during the current pandemic).
It remains unclear how long mission-driven fashion will last. Already, Madhappy pieces can be found in abundance on reselling platforms, and its hype may cannibalize the ethos that made it feel special to begin with. Popularity is logically the goal for apparel companies, but conflicts can arise when you cannot optimize for both spreading your brand's purported mission and raking in profits. Maybe, the fact that it is extremely difficult to make high-quality goods accessible to all is not emblematic of a shortcoming of any particular company but is instead reflective of a fundamental problem embedded in our current economic system.
The last time income inequality existed to this degree was during the aforementioned French Revolution. While there may not be a literal palace of Versailles the 99% can rally against, there are nevertheless analogues that explicitly highlight the shortcomings of the current economic system. In L.A., $118 pastel sweatpants with a message of “optimism” and “local optimist” are flying off the shelves on Melrose Ave. In D.C., legislators can't even agree on giving unemployed Americans any monetary aid even though lives are crumbling more each day. These dystopic features of massive economic inequality aren't the symptoms of just another imminent revolution within fashion, but point to one much larger in scale. We might be witnessing the precursors to a 21st century "Let them eat cake!" moment before our very eyes.
I have no sense of how often I’ll continue to post on here, but if you like this sort of content, please smash the heart button above! Harvard Law will be remote at least until 2021, so I’ll be in Southern California if you want to link up. Feel free to reach out at clansang@jd22.law.harvard.edu!