Presented by Courvoisier
Originally founded in 2005 by Kevin Ma as a dedicated sneaker blog, Hypebeast has since become a trusted source across fashion, sneakers, entertainment, and music, with a dedicated following on its website and print publications. As a leading voice in streetwear, the global platform has followed the brands, designers, creatives and cultural architects responsible for shaping the most significant trends that have defined the last two decades.
Brought to you by Courvoisier's “Bring Your Own Courvoisier, #BYOCV” — a statement that champions how people embrace their style, energy and unique qualities wherever they go — we take a look back at the tastemakers who not only started the party but remained everlasting fixtures well after the last call. Celebrating Hypebeast's 20th anniversary, we dive into the moments that shaped the early 2000s.
The Early 2000s: Sneakerheads and Japanese Threads
BAPE
In the early 2000s, Hypebeast reported to the quintessential sneakerhead. Footwear connoisseurs were not only hobbyists but loyal fashion aficionados who propelled street style into the public domain. During this period, Japanese streetwear label BAPE (A Bathing Ape®) dominated the scene. Three years after its founding in 1993, Nigo’s (Tomoaki Nagao) BAPE introduced its iconic CAMO pattern, a warped camouflage print that would become synonymous with the early 2000s aesthetic. Early adopters of BAPE, such as Pharrell Williams and Kanye West (Ye), solidified the label’s iron grip on youth culture.
The Tiffany Nike Dunk SB
In 2005, the Diamond Supply Co. x Nike Tiffany Dunk SB was a coveted footwear grail. The frenzy to get your hands on this model led to campouts and lines that wrapped around the street at popular skate shops and footwear boutiques. Its distinctive pastel aqua colorway with black, crocodile-embossed overlays and a metallic Swoosh logo catapulted the Dunk SB line to cult status and singlehandedly birthed “drop culture” and resale markets as we know them.
The Hundreds
As Japanese street style influences became more prominent in the West, labels like The Hundreds translated these style beats to reflect the subcultures of LA and beyond. Founded by Ben Shenassafar and Bobby Kim in 2003, The Hundreds showcased that style can amass followings that transcend numbers, bridging community with fashion. Inspired by the city’s relationship to street art, graffiti — including luminaries like Futura 2000 — and the golden age of hip-hop, The Hundreds mirrored the pulse of contemporary culture in its heyday. Since then, other brands have risen to the fore, but The Hundreds’ empire carries the torch as one of streetwear’s pioneering voices.
The 2010’s: Celebrity Co-Signs
Hip-Hop/Rap-Endorsed Fashion
Starting around the 2010s, parasocial relationships with celebrities and cultural authorities became the norm — instead of high-fashion publications dictating mainstream trends, consumers began looking to their idols for style inspiration. Cultural figures like Pusha T, Pharrell Williams, Rihanna, Kanye West, Kid Cudi, Lil Wayne, Future, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Young Thug, and more embodied a raw cultural vanguard in fashion. With LA and NYC growing as creative hubs for educated Millennials, the hipster aesthetic — born of a well-intentioned deconstruction of consumerist culture — quickly became a signifier of the mid-2000s. Labels like BAPE, Thrasher, HUF, Supreme, and Off-White catered to these subcultures by blending relaxed, skateboard cadences with high fashion. Co-signed by hip-hop’s elite, these labels also cemented drop culture as an artful marketing tactic.
Givenchy led by Riccardo Tisci
With Creative Director Riccardo Tisci at the helm, Givenchy was one of the first luxury houses to develop bold, maximalist silhouettes — namely the graphic Rottweiler and Bambi T-shirts — that created a new cultural uniform. The biggest names in entertainment gravitated to Givenchy's declarative shift in identity. Simple yet design-forward collections captured the era's zeitgeist, infusing high-end items with street energy.
Virgil Abloh
The late Virgil Abloh, a resounding visionary and pioneer in streetwear, launched his precursor to Off-White, PYREX VISION, in 2012. PYREX began as flannel shirts, mesh shorts, and one-off T-shirt drops. Word of mouth alone catapulted Abloh to the heights of luxury fashion before the career-defining arrival of Off-White.
Hood by Air
The brainchild of Shayne Oliver and Raul Lopez, Hood by Air, founded in 2006, introduced an experimental approach to streetwear and revived the art of spectacle. Heralded for its subversive take on traditional, luxury craftsmanship and avant-garde runway showcases, Hood by Air emphasized a collective-driven production model that illuminated rising designers within the streetwear space. Hood by Air, along with Virgil Abloh’s PYREX VISION, marked the rise of independent luxury.
Mid to Late 2010’s: The Rise of Luxury Streetwear
Virgil Abloh Drops the Industrial Belt and “The Ten”
With Virgil Abloh’s Off-White, founded in 2013, leading the pack as a streetwear innovator, the label dropped its iconic industrial belt — a commentary on working-class aesthetics entering the luxury category. It was one of the first instances where utilitarian style codes became more pronounced in streetwear, while also nodding to the era’s DIY and maker culture. Abloh’s groundbreaking footwear collaboration with Nike and Jordan Brand, dubbed “The Ten,” was a generational turning point. By deconstructing ten of Nike’s most iconic footwear models, Abloh rewrote the blueprint for the Air Jordan I, Air Force 1 Low, Air VaporMax and more with his signature handwritten motifs, and unique reconstructions featuring exposed and translucent materials.
Louis Vuitton x Supreme
With the Louis Vuitton x Supreme collaboration in 2017, street style had officially permeated luxury. Street-inspired silhouettes, no longer perceived as disparate from high-end tailoring, were now the norm in mainstream fashion. The ubiquitous LV logo monogrammed Supreme’s signature red hoodies, a theme that carried across a collection of duffel bags and trunk travel cases, and the bestselling Supreme x Louis Vuitton box logo tee.
Dior x Jordan Brand
Other examples on the luxury front included the Dior x Jordan Brand Air Jordan 1, which revamped the retro high model with a Dior-adorned Nike Swoosh. Led by the direction of former Creative Director Kim Jones, who was instrumental to Dior's venture into streetwear, the collaboration marked an exciting moment in the footwear realm that blended high and low fashion.
NikeLab and the Rise of Tech Wear
The tides began to shift in 2018, when brands like NikeLab, ACRONYM, Stone Island and Shadow Project began exploring the advent of tech wear. Luxury houses began turning their attention to sartorial collections that highlighted the hyper-sleek frontier of athletics. This trend illuminated society’s evolving relationship with modern tech, namely the early whispers of AI.
The Early 2020's: The Tech Wear and Gorpcore Takeover
Braving the Outdoors in Designer
Starting in the 2020s, the pivot to tech wear signaled a cultural response to the nature of connection — not only on digital screens and online domains, but also a psychological rekindling with the elements and the outdoors. The onset and aftermath of the pandemic initiated this fashion phenomenon, with designers fixated on the concept of utilitarian luxury — technical design focused on recreational versatility. The ARC’TERYX Shell Jacket was a main attractor during this period, along with the Salomon XT-6, famed for its rugged utility and futuristic construction. Though marketed for the outdoors, fashion savants gravitated to the trend’s function-meets-future sensibilities, envisioning a hyper-kinetic world paralleling the innovative developments in tech, AI and robotics.
2023 to Present: Flex Culture
Chrome Hearts and the Archival Savant
By 2023, labels like Chrome Hearts presented a new status symbol in fashion: the archival enthusiast. Faced with the future, fashion lovers began looking to the past to redefine themselves in relation to the world through secondhand grails. Defined by head-to-toe designer ensembles, the last few years have seen a rise in flex culture and coveted IFYKYK label cops. Rare, hard-to-find fashion items speak to Gen Z’s relationship to thrifting and upcycling — a circular fashion economy that emphasizes personal taste over mainstream appeal.
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