Why 2000s Streetwear is On Our Minds
20-Year Cycles, Mandela Effects, and the Quest for Meaning in a T-Shirt
I chose either the best or worst time to log out of Twitter/X, because something funny happened at the top of the new year. People started reminiscing about – and arguing over -- early 2000s-era streetwear. And The Hundreds.
There’s an unwritten law in fashion and broader culture that trends cycle every generation. The Strauss-Howe theory claims that these turnings last 20-22 years, allotting just enough time and space from the moment to become nostalgic about it. Over the pandemic, we watched Gen Z excavate clothing I remember from my high school/college years: Von Dutch rose from the ashes. Baggy pants and Birkenstocks resurrected. The same thing was happening when I was a teenager in the 1990s. The “alternative rock” I listened to channeled the ‘70s hippie movement. Vintage shoppers dug in thrift store bins for bellbottoms. Today, young people are hunting for the early-2000s equivalent: used oversized JNCO jeans.
Last week, the Los Angeles Times wrote a cover story on The Hundreds’ 20 year anniversary for their IMAGE magazine. This oral history was largely told by friends and peers from the culture, and then the culture carried that conversation over to the Internet. Within days of publication, Instagram archive pages dug up my old Blueprint interview about how we started the brand, somebody compared The Hundreds’ significance to Supreme, and then the community debated whether the online store Karmaloop was authentically streetwear. Complex summed it up by interviewing streetwear pioneers like Scott Sasso and Leah McSweeney on the topic.
It's funny that mention of The Hundreds conjures the ghost of Karmaloop. There’s a Mandela Effect around our brand selling on that website -- we never did! Back in the late 2000s (and into the early 2010s?), Karmaloop was the monster e-retailer that harvested underground T-shirt brands and universalized a new generation of independent streetwear (By today’s standards, some compare it to a site like SSENSE).
We refused to sell The Hundreds to Karmaloop, however. Before streetwear, Karmaloop sold rave clothing, so we believed them to be inauthentic to the culture. Meanwhile, one by one, our friends and close competitors capitulated and handed their brands over to KL. They were rewarded for doing so, as streetwear surged with the e-comm explosion. We stuck to our guns, remaining loyal to KL’s competitor Digital Gravel, whom we classified as a pure streetwear boutique. We believed that once the streetwear trend had passed, Karmaloop would migrate to the next fashion.
But streetwear didn’t shush. In fact, it graduated to the runway and went mainstream. Karmaloop wasn’t just a part of that boom, much of that ascendancy was because of them. The 2000s-era streetwear brands like 10.Deep, Crooks & Castles, and Diamond dominated the online shop and an underground movement broke through to popular culture. So now, 20 years later, when we look back on that Golden Age of streetwear, we roll it all into one burrito. Even if The Hundreds wasn’t actually a part of it.
Mandela Effects may have always played their part in the human experience, but it wasn’t until 2010 that a paranormal researcher put a name to the phenomenon of people sharing a collective memory that never happened. Nobody quite understands Mandela Effects, but the Internet probably has a lot to do with them, because of its tendency to mis- and disinform the population. The Internet has not only splintered the news, but it’s also fragmented and mashed up our interests, and this brings us back to the Strauss-Howe 20-year theory around trends.
There’s a lot of discourse now about how fashion is cycling at shorter intervals – 5 years, 10 years, 15. This is partially due to there being more clothes. With fast fashion, the consumer needs fast fashion trends. Everyone also now champions their own personal style. There isn’t just one Vogue or Hypebeast or trendsetter anymore, dictating the singular seasonal color or sneaker style. The Internet gives every design an opportunity, every flavor a fan.
So, now, when you look back on streetwear history, it makes sense to clump The Hundreds and Karmaloop together in the 2000s generation, just as music eras lump disparate artists into the same genre. When you’re in the present, it’s easier to discern and delineate between brands and trends. Decades later, they may seem interchangeable, especially to those who weren’t there. In 2024, young consumers’ puffy skate shoes are colliding with track jackets and parachute pants. Twenty years ago, these were three different fashion trends from different subcultures and time periods. In retrospect, they’re blended to encapsulate “Y2K.”
Why Karmaloop and The Hundreds though? Out of everything that happened with global streetwear over a ten-year stretch in the 2000s, why does the culture land on these names as reference points?
When people talk about “The Hundreds” with regards to this chapter of streetwear brands, I don’t think they specifically mean us. That’s why I take my time to correct someone when I see them post, “The Hundreds sold on Karmaloop.” They’re talking about the idea of The Hundreds. The concept of Karmaloop.
“The Hundreds” is symbolic of the ‘00 class of blog-startup labels and designers, just as the word “Karmaloop” is epitomizing that art vs. commerce inflection point by which streetwear lost its innocence. The Hundreds, Married to the Mob, Mighty Healthy… these were all entirely different brands with individual aesthetics and unique journeys. Yet, they are now painted with one broad brushstroke in the streetwear story.
Out of all the ‘70s punk bands, casual listeners point to the Ramones and the Sex Pistols when there are so many omitted icons like New York Dolls and Television. If you talk about ‘90s skateboarding, you may name DC or World Industries vs. New School, Think, or Mad Circle. Twenty years from now, Billie Eilish, Lana, and Laufey may be Mandela’d together as the 2020s, even though their work covered the course of a decade and their art sounds distinct from each other to the modern fan.
Zooming out, I think the more interesting conversation is why 2000s streetwear is being sentimentalized and reexamined right now. Aside from the 20-year milepost, we are also coming off a soft few years post-Supreme sale, post-Virgil, post-pandemic. There’s not as much money in streetwear, and consequently, far less hype. Sneakers are falling short of resale prices, brands are shuttering, and the culture is languishing. If you’re still here, you’re probably asking yourself why. It’s like once the music stops and you sober up at the end of the night. There is an acute window of clarity. And as you lay in bed with your ears still ringing, you start asking yourself the deeper questions.
Underneath the dollars and distractions, streetwear is founded on a rich history of art and entrepreneurship. There’s code, ritual, and culture. There are powerful human stories that are filled with high stakes, passion, and creativity. But much of this was obscured by the billion-dollar valuations, celebrities and commercialism that have characterized the industry over the last decade.
We are ravenous for raw and adventurous streetwear again, even if we are longing for a romanticized notion of what this must have been. We’ll call it “The Hundreds” and “Karmaloop,” but what we’re really searching for is authenticity and substance. There’s been ample time since 2000s streetwear ruled the airwaves, and just enough distance now to make new meaning out of the phantoms and mirages. But only if we squint. And only if we believe.