QUALITY: Boys’ fashion finds its prominence at Poly High School and in the greater social scene.
By Michelle Boulos, Staff Writer
The word fashion elicits images of women strutting down a runway, canvases for the creations of high end designers which will be soon emulated by lower-end department stores. But this image is changing, just as people now begin to picture the image of men and their fashion in a similar light.
Instead of runways, men’s fashion is displayed through a much different outlet: music. Whether it’s music videos or album listening parties, teenage boys look through these mediums as catalogs to the world of fashion— a stark contrast to females who flip through fashion magazines and watch red carpet live streams for their inspiration. Comparatively, the tundra of threads will always begin with celebrities, namely, Kanye West, Jerry Lorenzo, and Ian Connor.
Poly is no exception to this fever of male fashion. Trendsetters like Andrew Pham (9) and Christian (CJ) Perea (9), credit their first spark of interest in brand names to rapper A$AP Rocky’s music video, “PE$O.” “Andrew showed me some of the clothing being worn and we got introduced to multiple different designer brands like Raf Simmons, Rick Owens, Visvm, Balenciaga, Balmain, Margiela, Alexander Wang, and Comme de Garçons,” Perea recalled. The catalyst to their wardrobes came soon after they discovered the rapper’s own stylist.
From there, the boys’ closets were cleaned out and restocked with pieces reminiscent of the 1990’s hip hop culture, while they began “cuffing their jeans, layering clothing, and wearing oversized pieces,” Pham detailed.
The crown jewel of all these brands lately is the exclusive Supreme, where hoodies can go for 1500 dollars. With only a handful of stores in the world, brand exclusivity intrigues the teen boys, who line up as early as six in the morning to get their hands on a new collection— to some it is labeled as the definition of “hype.”
But this one producer is among many others with the high quality and high price. “Andrew and I have been persuading people into making their wardrobe more so quality over quantity,” Perea explained. This new emphasis on name brands is novelty in the world of men’s fashion. Of course, the problem is that boys will now “disregard the name brands that we wear which is a big part of the industry,” Perea elaborated.
Still from a more local perspective, these styles have been mimicked by chain stores such as Forever 21, H&M, Urban Outfitters, Pacsun, and Active. Poly boys are more easily able to reach out to these trends in this sense and also create an image for themselves. “At our age, I think clothing is our only way of showing [our] characteristics,” Yisak Issac (10), a fellow fashion follower, stated.
Whether teenage boys are buying their oversized t-shirts for 1500 dollars or 10 dollars, their interest in the fashion industry is revolutionary. The idea of quality over quantity applies to not only their clothing, but their characteristics as well. “My style expresses what kind of person I am and the ways I’m influenced,” Pham expressed.
And who knows— tomorrow another rapper may drop a music video and restock every teen boy’s closet again.