by BIGBEE » Sun Sep 21, 2014 7:20 pm
How do you guys feel about supreme and bape together? I know for me it doesn't seem right even after the collabs. The brands just seem too separate from each other visually and lifestyle-y. To use the analogy; Supreme is the kid that ditched school to go skating, he doesn't give a fuck about fashion he just buys quality and cool. Bape is the japanese interpretation of kids that ditched school to go hang out at a street corner; and wear clothing 2 sizes too big and drink brass monkeys. Their whole crew wishes they had a bentley to ride around the city in. I also think bape takes itself too damn seriously compared to supreme. Supreme will release some very tongue in cheek stuff i.e. snakeskin flannel, the accessories, that fur pullover last season.
I was looking through the most recent lookbooks of each brand and you can tell that the person who does the styling for supreme thinks a lot about how to make the outfits look very "thrown" together and not fashionable (the designer even said "fashion is a disaster"). Every thing is really loud (with a few exceptions), they aren't afraid to put 4 different patterns into an outfit. This goes against the monochrome trend. Supreme makes their lookbooks seem effortless with no changes in lighting, models, hell even poses That being said I'm a big fan of the supreme lookbooks.
Some examples that I think capture what I'm talking about
The actual outfits in the bape lookbook are very similar to Supreme. Lots of bright colors, plenty of patterns, everyone looks sad.
Strong example
The big difference to me comes down to the budget and how put together the outfits look. Bape obviously spent much more time on this lookbook. There are a bevy of different angles. Bape also really likes to use a sweatsuit look with their signature camo. To me this seems like a styling choice supreme would make, but they never do despite the fact that every season they offer a sweatsuit (PCL, Crosses, the fuck'them sweats from this season) One exception was the stone wash kung fu suit in last seasons lookbook, but that fits into the whole playful tongue in cheek thing.
Back to sweatsuits; sweatsuits are too affected for the lifestyle supreme sells. The supreme customer doesn't think about what he wears he just throws on whatever's on the top of the drawers, grabs his skateboard and skates the rest of the day. The Bape customer cares about clothing more than the supreme customer and so the brand takes itself more seriously by wearing matching shorts and shirts. Clothing has always been a big part of the hip-hop lifestyle that Bape sells. But clothing is not a big part of the specific skate or die lifestyle that supreme sells (obviously gear is a big part of skateboarding culture today)
Selected examples from the most recent Bape lookbook