Historic Institutions are now Embracing Streetwear Culture

We made it Street-Fiends! Let me run through a recent experience I had at Selfridges London not too long ago.

Selfridges London has been in operation for over 100 years and is currently the second largest retail store in the United Kingdom, if you've heard the phrase 'The Customer is always right' then you have unintentionally experienced a piece of Selfridges history, that's right, Selfridges were the innovators that defined the Brand/Client unspoken interaction laws that we all experience today.

Selfridges has become something of a staple when it comes to British shopping and marketing standards, there is even a Selfridges design museum located on the fourth floor near the customer service desk.

So imagine my surprise when I was walking through luxury menswear, surrounded by the established brands of our time (Prada, Louis Vuitton, Gucci etc) and I suddenly start to hear filthy bass-lines somewhere in the distance, intrigued by the sound invasion I followed the soft thud of the bass until the clinking of the usual piano sonatas you might enjoy in Selfridges was all but lost.

That's when I saw it... 'STREET'

I walk through an overly intricate stone arch that looks like it was sculpted by Myron of Eleutherae to find something that stops me in my tracks 'A BATHING APE'

'What?... Wait what?!'

I start franticly flipping through the racks making noises that are only acceptable in the boudoir when a man fully Baped out approaches me with a big smile on his face and says 'You haven't seen this place before have you?'

He couldn't be more correct, I hadn't seen this before, in fact I hadn't seen ANYTHING like this before, as I turn my gaze around the room I see them all;

A Bathing Ape ✓ Off-White ✓ Kith ✓ Kenzo ✓ Stone Island ✓ Trapstar ✓ 

I was sad the see that Palace was left out of the fun but I had never seen a wider selection of streetwear in my life and it was in the most selective retail location in the world, if it meant anything at all, it meant that we had finally made it lads.

The sense of pride I felt to know that the same historic institution that displayed the first monoplane to achieve cross channel flight in 1909, that created safe spaces for women dating back to as early as the 1910s, that held the first public display of moving silhouette images by television in 1925, that had been offered as an air raid shelter during World War 2, that was bombed during the blitz but survived almost unscathed and that housed the necessary technology to secure communications between Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1943, now displayed Trapstar and Stone Island proudly in a sizeable section of one of the largest retail stores in the world and filled it with people who are passionate about the culture... can't really hate on that.

Now at least if some normy thinks my outfit is a bit much, I can respond with 'This is what luxury fashion looks like these days'