Clothes don’t need to “mean” anything

Aime Leon Dore, Sporty & Rich and branding in the post-hype era

Earlier in the year, on a trip to New York, there was one question I asked in every meeting — what is with Aime Leon Dore? We’d regularly featured the brand back when I was editing at Highsnobiety, but that was a long time ago now, and since then, the brand has exploded — it’s endlessly dissected, meme’d and mocked online.

Aime Leon Dore, or ALD as it’s known, is kinda like a grown-up Supreme. It’s very New York, very ’90s, very Polo, but much less loud, with fewer collabs and less of an emphasis on drops and the resell market. It reminds me a lot of Supreme back when Brendon Babenzien was creative director — tons of prep, but done in a way that still feels very street. ALD was in the perfect place to capitalize on menswear’s post-covid shift toward more classic aesthetics, and the brand has exploded since the pandemic — LVMH has a minority stake, and Alexandre Arnault is on the board (that’ll be the son of Bernard, who ran Rimowa and is now at Tiffany).

In a recent interview with the New York Times, founder Teddy Santis explained that “when you’re buying into ALD, you’re buying into a world — you’re buying into a perspective more than a garment.” Santis clearly knows how to build a narrative — he’ll put New York personalities like Action Bronson in his lookbooks, and his stores have the same clubhouse feel as a sprawling Ralph Lauren flagship. Again, there’s a big Supreme comparison to be made here — he’s essentially selling a nostalgic vision of New York, with rap on the stereo and countless homages to Polo.

Another familiar name from back in my Highsnob days is Sporty & Rich, which has come a long way since it began life as a Tumblr account in 2013. Now, it’s a fully-fledged lifestyle brand, with a flagship in NYC and around $30m in revenue, according to a recent feature in GQ. Like ALD, Emily Oberg’s brand trades in ’90s prep and luxury aesthetics, and like ALD, it’s heavy on the vibey, moodboard marketing — Oberg told GQ “I think the product is almost secondary, and it's really about the lifestyle around it." 

If ALD is primarily aimed at Instagram-obsessed young men with a taste for rap and sneakers, then Sporty & Rich is catering for their female equivalent. The Sporty & Rich lifestyle is all about wellness, with recipes for salmon ceviche and tees with giant “HEALTH CLUB” branding. Oberg’s New York flagship even features a spa offering lymphatic massages and facials.

These two brands are pretty emblematic of where fashion is at right now — superficially classic and luxe, but at the end of the day, heavily driven by marketing. It’s a bit ridiculous at times — there’s a Porsche sitting in ALD’s flagship store, and Oberg told GQ that she plans on opening Sporty & Rich country clubs — but I’m not here to say what you should or shouldn’t spend your money on. In fact, ALD seems like a pretty good place to go for some garment-dyed carpenter pants, and Sporty & Rich’s one-wash denim doesn’t look bad either.

As I wrote in my book, I was skeptical that the pandemic would kick-start an era of conscious consumption, and that we’d soon live in a trend-free utopia. Clearly, storytelling is still a huge factor in purchasing decisions — brands are powerful, and a compelling narrative can get people buying all sorts of things. In that sense, things haven’t changed since the pre-pandemic hype era, when luxury sneakers, absurd collaborations and Supreme’s box logo were the most powerful forces in the industry.