In their bedazzled hoodies and crystal-embellished T-shirts, hype-driven shoppers may be the last true dandies left. Photo: The New York Times
At Patron Of The New, a New York City boutique that is to rappers what REI is to hikers, you can shop by brand, or by size, or if you so choose, by sparkles.
The store carries a constellation of crystal-embellished clothing.
There are US$1,250 (approximately RM5,560) vintage T-shirts from Bossi, with rhinestones tacked across the front, the aptly named Starry Night Flannel from the New York label Who Decides War, with petite gems a-twinkling all across it; as well as a US$620 (RM2,760) sweatshirt from the Los Angeles label Paly, with rhinestone stars studded on the chest.
“It gives it a little more oomph, feels a little more special,” said Jackson Ray, the store’s general manager, standing in front of rack stuffed with Bossi’s sparkling tees, which he said sell well (a woman was trying one on as he spoke).
“It’s elevated loungewear,” he said, nodding to the fact that rhinestones are landing not on women’s heels or the prim gala dresses, where crystals have historically found a home – but on shrugged-on casual wear: tees, flannels and sweats.
“When you first think of Swarovski, you would think of women’s jewellery, you wouldn’t really think of diamond shorts, diamond shirts,” said Ayana Avery, 31, a postal worker from Cleveland, North Carolina.
She does streetwear content creation on the side and owns a bevy of bedazzled gear, including kaleidoscopic flannels stippled with rhinestone sunbursts.
Dressing like a chandelier isn’t for everyone, but in some corridors of the fashion market, the quiet luxury trend is being snuffed out beneath a pair of Amiri US$1,490 (RM6,630) crystal sneakers.
“It’s a visible statement of your spending power and your taste level,” said Jian DeLeon, the men’s fashion director at Nordstrom, which stocks extravagant everyday pieces, including a US$4,280 (RM19,035) crystal-splayed Off-White hoodie and US$995 (RM4,425) calf-squelching crystal-embellished jeans from Purple Denim.
At ComplexCon, the chaotic streetwear carnival held in Las Vegas last month, bushy-haired attendees wore Ed Hardy hoodies with sparkly gems flowing along the sleeves.
NBA tunnel fits of late have been shimmery as well – for example, the shirt-to-sneakers rhinestoned Versace set that Alex Sarr of the Washington Wizards wore to an October game.
Some bedazzled pieces shine with Viper Room (nightclub in West Hollywood, California) va-va-voom, like Balmain’s US$6,500 (RM28,900) rhinestone-studded bomber.
Others give off a vibe reminding of The Simple Life (reality television series starring Paris Hilton) as in Balenciaga’s $650 flamingo-pink tee with Bebe written in rhinestones on the front, alluding to the now-downsized mall brand of the same name.
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“People don’t want to be flat anymore,” said the stylist Eric McNeal.
Last year, for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, McNeal styled seven-time Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton in a custom Burberry jacket and trousers crawling with Swarovski crystals, like a wearable Circus Circus sign.
“It weighed a ton, but in the light of Vegas, it worked,” McNeal said.
Hamilton doubled down on the shimmer at this year’s Las Vegas race, wearing a custom Tommy Hilfiger get-up that made him twinkle like a deconstructed disco ball.
“People want things that pop out, things that are really a statement,” McNeal said.
That’s true for rappers and athletes, for whom sparkly clothes can act as heat-seeking missiles for paparazzi cameras. But in our present attention economy, it also applies to anyone thirsting for likes on social media.
“As the video fit pic has become the lingua franca of online flexing, things that shine when you turn are important,” DeLeon said.
For proof, look to the Instagram video Dylan Lee, 25, who works at an insurance company in San Diego, recently posted showing off his US$340 (RM1,510) 20k Diamond Jorts from the New York label Birth Of Royal Child.
“I’m letting these do the talking today,” Lee says in the clip, as he oscillates slowly, demonstrating how his bedazzled jorts shimmer like rain on asphalt.
With a fittingly baroque brand name, Birth Of Royal Child’s crystal jorts have become a definitional garment of streetwear’s luxury maturation. With hundreds of rhinestones sprawling down the front, these crystal decorated capri pants look like what Liberace would wear if he was resurrected and decided to play Coachella.
Cheer Guo, the designer of Birth of Royal Child, which was introduced just this year. said it has already sold more than 10,000 of its Diamond Collection pieces, which include flannels, jeans and jackets.
She said the company draws in more ostentatious dressers who like “wearing very shiny stuff, not just as a show piece, but for daily wear”.
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The glittery jorts in particular have found purchase with glittery names. In recent months, Buffalo Bills linebacker Von Miller, Cleveland Browns wide receiver Jerry Jeudy and rappers including Future and DaBaby (arguably the glam-rock gods of today) have all worn them.
“You’re wearing jewellery in a sense, versus just some shorts,” Lee said in an interview.
To him, some spangled shorts nod back, pleasingly, to the boisterous, blinged out 2000s, when such rappers as Pharrell Williams wore gargantuan Jacob The Jeweler chains.
Streetwear is very much in the throes of an every-20-years trend cycle. Ed Hardy trucker hats, lustrous Pelle Pelle leather jackets and BB Simon’s gem-coated belts (worn years ago by Madonna and the Diplomats) are all on the rise again.
It’s of little surprise that a photo of a baby-faced Lil Wayne wearing a Swarovski-studded hoodie from A Bathing Ape in the mid-2000s has been pinging around social media again.
“The 90s to the early 2000s flashy aesthetic is making its way back into fashion,” Lee said.
Or at least making its way back to his Instagram account. – ©2024 The New York Times Company
