{"id":1060,"date":"2019-03-21T18:44:03","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T18:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hhv-journal.com\/?p=1060"},"modified":"2019-10-10T15:35:07","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T13:35:07","slug":"stuessy-a-much-too-short-history-lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hhv-journal.com\/en\/features\/stuessy-a-much-too-short-history-lesson\/","title":{"rendered":"St\u00fcssy – A Much Too Short History Lesson"},"content":{"rendered":"

St\u00fcssy – A Much Too Short History Lesson<\/strong><\/h1>\n
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Words: Caiza Andresen<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Founded in the 1980s, St\u00fcssy has significantly changed the streetwear landscape. No, better said paved the way for it. Previously it didn\u2019t exist, what arose at that time. St\u00fcssy grew organically from youth culture and simultaneously changed the fashion business.<\/p>\n

Shawn St\u00fcssy only wanted one thing: to surf and shape boards. At the same time, he began to print t-shirts to give away with the boards he sold to friends and locals at Laguna Beach. Unwittingly, he landed in the fashion trade through surfing and skating \u2013 his passions.<\/p>\n

St\u00fcssy coined the terms streetwear \/ surfwear \/ clubwear \/ whatever in a time of pop-cultural upheaval: after the seventies gave us punk, the eighties surprised us with a musical monster by the name of rap. Punk meant that suddenly anyone could form a band. The aesthetic limitations and prerequisite of musical talent were forgotten. Creativity was the key to success, if not to success, then to self-realization. Rap tossed aside all social barriers and presented sampling to the world. Take something that you like and make something new out of it. That was the splitting of the atom for streetwear.<\/p>\n

St\u00fcssy is a canvas \u2013 a canvas for youth culture. And not by just observing from afar. St\u00fcssy is always in the centre of the action, taking an active role. Fifties Americana. Dinosaur. Rasta symbols. B-boy aesthetic. What kind of mix is that? How does that sound on paper? Absolutely irrelevant. Because it is not found on paper but on a T-shirt. The canvas of youth.<\/p>\n

And youth is worldwide. A worldwide Tribe. One Tribe. The international St\u00fcssy Tribe. Tokyo Chapter. London Chapter. Berlin Chapter. New York Chapter. LA Chapter. Hiroshi Fujiwara, Michael Kopelman, James Jebbia… The most creative names of our culture took their first steps together, bearing the scribbled \u00bbS\u00ab on the breast.<\/p>\n

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It was the limited nature, the few selected shops that ignited the fire that turned St\u00fcssy into a legend: the four-leaf clover, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the unofficial entry ticket to a world full of kindred spirits. One had to find a way to get one\u2019s hands on St\u00fcssy gear. And on that journey, one became part of something bigger. The St\u00fcssy philosophy spread through the Tribe like wildfire. \u00bbIt was an anti-fashion thing\u00ab, says James Lebon, one of the O.G. members of the Tribe.<\/p>\n

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Before St\u00fcssy there was Comme des Gar\u00e7ons und Gucci \u2013 high class fashion. There was Carhartt WIP \u2013 workwear. And there was sportswear: Campion and Hanes. St\u00fcssy took all of that and created something new \u2013 punk attitude. There are people who say that St\u00fcssy virtually invented the printed T-shirt. That\u2019s not quite right, but it was reinvented. And none of that was calculated. There was no PR agency behind it. It wasn\u2019t designed on a drawing board. St\u00fcssy was and still is organic. It grew naturally all over the world. Without St\u00fcssy there would be no Supreme, no Bathing Ape. Without St\u00fcssy, streetwear would not be what it is today.<\/p>\n

If I was to go into collaborations, I would have to type five times as much. And honestly, the editors are already waiting for my article.<\/p>\n

I remember my first St\u00fcssy piece. It was a black shirt with a fly on it. I will never forget it, because it opened up a world and a narrative that still fascinates me to this day, and in which I have found fulfilment. It showed me that I didn\u2019t have to fit in but simply seek out people like me. Because if they didn\u2019t exist there would be no brand like St\u00fcssy. When you think about it, the whole thing gives you a sense of hope.<\/p>\n

Forget how shitty it is to be a teenager. You don\u2019t have to fit in. You can be what you want to be. And with this logo scribbled on a board with a broken felt-tip, you\u2019ll never be alone on your path.<\/p>\n

I am getting a little emotional.<\/p>\n

At the same time I can\u2019t help but wonder if that strange \u00bbS\u00ab that every girl used to paint on her Eastpak backpack, really came from St\u00fcssy? If so: Woah. Mind blown. St\u00fcssy IS the Youth. Article finished.<\/p>\n

Fast Forward to 2019: St\u00fcssy stays true to its roots. And to the vibe the one felt at Laguna Beach in the 1980s \u2013 that feeling of being free and easy.<\/p>\n

All hail the Tribe.<\/p>\n