Stüssy

Shawn Stussy was shaping surfboards in Laguna Beach, California, in 1979 when he started signing each one with a marker, in a slanted hand adapted from his uncle, the artist Jan Stussy. He printed the signature on T-shirts to promote the boards, and the shirts took off on their own. Frank Sinatra Jr., an accountant who had surfed with him as a teenager and was no relation to the singer, put in $5,000 to run the business side, and Stussy Inc. was established in 1984. The brand spread through the International Stüssy Tribe, a loose network of DJs, artists and shop owners in London, Paris and Tokyo who often got their jackets as gifts. Hiroshi Fujiwara brought it to Japan in the mid-1980s, and the first boutique opened in SoHo in 1991. Shawn Stussy resigned in 1996, and the Sinatra family has owned the company since. It kept distribution tight, cutting wholesale accounts in 2014 to favor its own stores, which it calls chapters. Our Stüssy history covers the Nike run from the 2000 Huarache to the 2025 Baltoro, Shawn Stussy's guest turn on Dior Men Pre-Fall 2020 and the 40th anniversary capsule with Comme des Garçons. The pointed Cool S doodled in school notebooks has nothing to do with the brand.