Culture

Run-DMC released My Adidas in 1986, and adidas signed the group to an endorsement deal soon after. A rap group selling sneakers by rapping about them sits close to the center of everything here. Clothes pick up meaning from music, art and the street, and the stories follow how. Dapper Dan remade luxury logos in Harlem. The Lo-Lifes built a scene around Polo Ralph Lauren in Brooklyn. Shawn Stussy signed his surfboards in Laguna Beach and then signed T-shirts the same way. Palace came out of London's skate scene in 2009. Virgil Abloh went from Off-White to Louis Vuitton, and Pharrell followed him there in 2023. KAWS turned a cartoon skull into the Companion figure. The money side gets the same scrutiny, from the Supreme drop to the resale economy, with attention to who did the work and who collected the profit.