Streetwear died when the mainstream absorbed it, losing its subcultural meaning

Evidence

Meanwhile, streetwear’s absorption into the mainstream weakened its claims to authenticity. Even in 2019, Virgil Abloh had predicted its decline: “I would definitely say [streetwear]’s gonna die, you know? Like, its time will be up.” Certainly, it was no longer from the streets. London-based brand founder Jehu-cal Emmanuel Enemokwu noted that at its peak, “Streetwear became almost like a rich man’s fetish.” A major data point for the genre’s collapse was VF Corporation’s 2024 sale of Supreme to eyewear conglomerate EssilorLuxottica for $1.5 billion—significantly less than its 2020 purchase price. Meanwhile, the highest-end consumers were beginning to resent the proliferation of logos and instead reached for the “quiet luxury” (or “stealth wealth”) of craft-driven brands like Loro Piana and Brunello Cucinelli. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 774

Categorization

• XREF: This directly exemplifies the ‘omnivore monoculture’ collapse of subcultural difference that is the book’s thesis — streetwear’s absorption is a case of categories flattening.
• SEED: Angle: the death-cycle of once-subcultural genres — streetwear, grunge, punk — as the standard lifecycle under omnivore monoculture.
• DEFINE: Introduces the term ‘quiet luxury’/‘stealth wealth’ as the counter-reaction to logo saturation.