From patches to safety pins, distressing, burning and drawing on clothing, DIY luxury trash fashion is mega-important right now in both the underground music scene and in the luxury fashion market. A way of turning cheap materials and traditionally destructive processes into high end, one of a kind garments, DIY luxury trash fashion is a fun and highly coveted process of upscaling clothing. With its roots in the earliest days of punk fashion, the oversaturated social media age we are trapped in has left the community thirsty for new ways of being unique. The only way to present a look that is absolutely original nowadays is to create or modify garments from their preexisting state. From TooPoor and Lil Peep to InternetGirl and Yung Cortex, the Soundcloud artist/Depop stylist relationship has emerged as a common phenomenon within the underground scene. As most artists pair with stylists to create a marketable look, lots of DIY luxury trash fashion garments have been spotted over the past couple of years within the music community.
photo credit: Conde Nast Archive
Perhaps the key incident that has led mainstream fashion to begin appropriating traditional crust punk garments was Gucci’s ever-popular SS16 collection. It featured many distinctly iconic embroidered patches that were each featured on multiple pieces; a red snake, orange tiger head, red roses, a housefly, etc. When one of the biggest luxury corporations in the world starts capitalizing on do-it-yourself budget clothing construction, it’s a big deal. This sparked a massive trend within luxury fashion as patches, pins, studs and eyelets began popping up everywhere from Givenchy to Coach to Yves Saint Laurent. Brands are searching for a return to individuality and authenticity in a social media, image-based age.
Berlin-based fashion brand, Ottolinger, is known for their carefully constructed couture garments that get set on fire. Strategically placed burn holes along with cut up and sewn back together piecemeal looks, Ottolinger has been destroying their luxury clothing and elevating the prices since 2016, essentially presenting DIY luxury trash fashion. Brand such as Menyelek have been stitching together multiple shirts into extra long sleeved patchwork garments. In the mainstream, at stores such as Forever 21 and H&M, this method of construction was simplified to sewing two shirt-halves together.
photo credit: Andrei Zozulya Davidov
Vetements FW17 runway collection featured a punk denim vest with classic hardcore-style embroidered patches bearing the names of popular luxury brand stockists, Ssense, Max Field and Mr. Porter. Another piece in their collection that truly represented DIY luxury trash fashion was a black leather standard crust punk coat that was spiked, studded and hand painted with faux-political phrases including “not my resident” and “queers still here”.
Gypsysport’s recent FW18 collection embodied DIY luxury trash fashion and was named one of Vogue’s top ten of the season. One of the most hardcore looks of the collection was a shirt made entirely of safety pins. Hyper-deconstructed garments were repeatedly ripped and sewn back together with thick stitching across entire collection, referencing traditional crust punk patchwork. The setup for the runway show featured a tent city emblazoned with the Gypsysport logo, which referenced impoverished communities worldwide, providing a stark contrast with the high-end garments they were showcasing.
photo credit: Luca Tombolini / Indigital.tv
Popular Montreal-based online retailer, Yard666sale, is known for their signature custom pieces featuring haphazard embroidery, gothic illustrated graphics and playful stitched together sweaters. They often take the luxury fashion to an extreme extent, posting images and videos of extra long burning fake fingernails and toenails.
Along with the current emergence of modern emo/pop punk nostalgia, we have also spotted a revival of custom shoes. For scene middle school and high school students in the mid 2000’s, drawing and writing song lyrics on Converse and Vans in markers was all the rage. Nowadays, this is stil being seen but has been taken to another level entirely. Poptabs, O rings, safety pins, and other small metal trinkets are getting slipped onto shoelaces. Designer and stylist Keagan Hoffman has been tricking out Nike Air Force Ones and Vans Old School shoes with diamond appliqués, wrap-around chain laces, safety pin embellishments and metal key rings.
@keaganvhoffman
Instagram-based custom brand, Korporation, creates really amazing DIY denim. They take standard jeans or pants and add zippers, chains, patches, straps, eyelets, illustrations or designs. The resulting garments are well-fitting, upcycled pants that can be sold for more than the original price because of the additional time spent customizing. Patches are hand-illustrated with marker on a variety of different fabrics and are hand-stitched with large crust-punk type thread. Depop mogul, Kelsey R (@whatevernbd) is the queen of psychedelic-punk vintage and custom garments. Her aesthetic bleeds puff paint cobwebs, safety pins, rainbows, hippie flowers, and cherries. She includes lots of punk pins and embroidered patches in her looks and has been known to sew fun, cheap party favors such as plastic spider toys or miniature teddy bear plushies onto her garments. Boston-based custom vintage brand, Farewell USA, creates custom metal patches and sews them onto flannels, distressed denim, and jackets. He also does a lot of hand-bleached garments and often cuts apart and sews together pieces of clothing together in efforts to reconstruct.
Many members of the underground music scene have also been spotted in DIY luxury trash fashion as of late. Migos, Lil Pump, Future, and other mainstream swag-rappers were all huge fans of the SS16 Gucci collection with the iconic snake and tiger patches. Plenty of musicians were claiming to be punkstars and needed DIY clothing to fit that image they were projecting. Gothboiclique members Mackned and Lil Peep and were both key underground artists to start repping the distressed, custom punk pieces. Most of their iconic hand-crafted pieces over the past few years have been designed by Hesi Collectiv. Fish Narc has been creating his own custom garments since he was a child. Gemm Forza and Trxpxvl have both been creating tons of custom garments for themselves and to sell online. Coldworldgang member, Adharmasatru, hand painted a custom hat and brought it to sell at Underground Underdogs LA show.
photo credit: @killbighead
DIY luxury trash fashion also creates access to a wider community to pull off high-end looks. By shopping at a local thrift store such as Goodwill or Savers, a garment can be purchased for under $5 and get upscaled by the wearer to achieve a luxury look or sell it for significantly more money online. DIY luxury trash is a positive step forward for the fashion community as it promotes authenticity, individuality, and conserves resources by making use of scrap fabric and cheap materials.