This Is Not a T-Shirt: A Brand, a Culture, a Community--a Life in Streetwear

INTRODUCTION TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION

THE QUESTION

So, why a book?

I tallied almost twenty tour stops last year to promote This Is Not a T-Shirt. The setup was quite simple. From London to Portland, Philly to San Francisco, I’d ask a local friend to interview me onstage about my memoir before I took questions from the crowd and signed their books. In Los Angeles, we surprised readers at the Barnes & Noble at the Grove with Wale, with whom I’ve shared a long history in the culture. In New York, the activist and journalist Noor Tagouri moderated our discussion at Housing Works. When it comes to Boston and T-shirts, there’s no one better to call on but my brother Johnny Cupcakes. Same goes for the designer Benny Gold in San Francisco.

Yet, no matter how diverse their backgrounds or close our relationship, almost every guest moderator initiated the conversation with the same question: "So, why a book?"

At first, I shrugged it off as a coincidence. Then, I started bracing, sometimes wincing, in anticipation of The Question. Deeper into the tour, I’d say, Hey, I know you’re probably going to ask this first, but can we skip it? I unfairly interpreted So, why a book? as a slight. It immediately set me on the defensive, triggered my impostor syndrome. Every night’s event would begin with me feeling like I had to justify to a sold-out audience why I was deserving of a book, why I thought I had the right to be thought of as an author. (And, if I were really lucky, a latecomer would miss my response the first time and ask the very same question during the Q&A.)

Of course, the question was never malicious. I understood that if this was the most pressing inquiry on my closest friends’ minds, then my larger following must have been even more confused by (or at the least, curious about) the existence of This Is Not a T-Shirt. For almost two decades, I’ve carved out my SEO as streetwear designer and business owner with little shine on Bobby Hundreds as writer. As I elaborate on later in this book, successful branding, while conducive to business, can be creatively limiting and almost constraining. It’s already challenging to see people being exceptional in one medium. It’s even harder to accept that someone can excel across divergent platforms and industries. We are imprisoned by the narrow mindset that passion and talent are sowed sparingly, while the resounding truth is the same for me as it is for anyone else: we care madly for many different things. And I’ve used every medium at my disposal to tell stories. As far as fashion is concerned, graphic T-shirts are the most direct and potent in communicating a message, but I’ve also employed zines, photo essays, documentaries, festivals, blogs, and a YouTube travel series.

The secret of The Hundreds’ long-term success as an apparel brand is (appropriately) attributed to my partner Ben Shenassafar’s business savvy, to our timing, and of course, to the quality of our designs and craftsmanship. The storytelling often flies under the radar. Yet storytelling is the cornerstone of a living brand. It is the spirit that gives our flesh color, animates us, and directs the journey.

ON COMMUNITY

It’s been a year since This Is Not a T-Shirt published—almost two since I wrote most of it—and I feel like I could dedicate another book to everything that has transpired in my life, in streetwear, and in the surrounding world since.

The book exceeded all my expectations. I didn’t know quite how far we could go, but I knew what I wanted. First, to preserve our story. Not just the story of The Hundreds, but the story of our generation. Streetwear’s foundation is buried so deep in the underground that there is scant record of its history, its biology. As industries have assembled on top of its soil, the mainstream spotlight has bleached streetwear’s granular origins—the ego-fueled artists, the makeshift shops, the romantic counterculture. I wanted to chronicle this chapter of our lives and culture, for us to say we existed.

The enduring message of the book, however, is one of valuing community. Once I had pinpointed community as the essence of not just streetwear but of any culture-based industry, I was reminded time and again of its magical properties in impelling movements, provoking trends, and instituting positive change.

One of those revelations struck a couple months before the book came out, on March 31, 2019: the day that Nipsey Hussle died.

The late, great Nipsey Hussle was a force unlike any Los Angeles has ever seen. As a world-class rapper, he painted a brutally honest portrait of his South Central neighborhood. Perhaps of greater significance, however, was Nip’s perpetual support of and recompense to his community. From the buildings along Crenshaw to the people who fortified them, Nipsey was his community’s strongest advocate, working closely with the city to shore up their infrastructure.

Nipsey’s money went right back into the neighborhood, as did he. He preferred to meet on his doorstep and take meetings in his car, where he had front-row seats to South Central past, present, and future. Nipsey Hussle had the keys to the city—he could drive his luxury sedan to any coastline or hilltop ridge of L.A. Instead, he planted his roots in the jungles that raised him. While the brick-and-mortar iteration of his family-owned clothing boutique, The Marathon Clothing, no longer stands on the corner of Crenshaw and Slauson, the online shop continues to remain up and running, even a year after Ermias Asghedom, a.k.a. Nipsey Hussle, was senselessly murdered in his parking space. In the months since Nipsey’s exit, something extraordinary survived, blooming from those cracks in the pavement. If Nip had lived as a surface-level artist, making junk-food music and merchandise that was only as deep as the cotton it was printed on, it would’ve all burned off as ephemera over time. But Nipsey wasn’t singular. He was the sum of his community. In his absence, the youngsters collected and reformed around this chasm and filled it. The rapper Six Sev took the baton squarely, making music and holding community events like Pray for the Hood (which The Hundreds helped organize). We also collaborated with the Crenshaw district’s budding sculptor Yung Kazi on his claymation characters. Lauren Halsey became the next great Angeleno artist to watch for. And Olympia Auset and SÜPRMARKT committed to ending food apartheid by supplying fresh produce at Leimert Park on Sunday mornings. All of these young black souls were galvanized by Nipsey’s community-first attitude in art and business. Nipsey Hussle is not just standing out front of Crenshaw and Slauson now. He’s everywhere, omnipresent, resurrected a thousand times strong through united voices and joined hands across Los Angeles and the earth.

IN THE MIDST of one particularly trying leg of my book tour, I got a chance to see the power of The Hundreds’ community really shine. First, I must admit that it’s ridiculous for me to complain about anything tour-related. Since the book’s debut, I’ve had the privilege of flying back and forth across the country and around the world to speak to auditoriums of engaged readers and devout fans. I am lucky and I know it.

On this particular day, I had just finished a series of book events—a few bookstores in New York City and the Pitchfork Music Festival and ComplexCon in Chicago. Chicago was the final book-tour stop of that leg. My next destination was Maui, where I’d be reuniting with my family for a much-needed vacation.

The morning of my Hawaii trip was crisp and blue. There were no red letters on the departures monitors at O’Hare. Just a series of NOW BOARDING and ON TIME status updates blinking happily. But before I could take a smiling selfie aboard the plane, the cabin shuddered to a halt. After an hour of maintenance crews hammering beneath us, the pilot informed us that the flight was cancelled. The passengers howled a synchronized Fuck! and charged back into the airport like the Scots led by William Wallace in Braveheart, bloodthirsty for customer service. It was pointless. The next plane wouldn’t depart Chicago for six hours.

I didn’t eat the entire day in the airport. I barely looked at my phone. I was wired. My flight from Chicago to Hawaii had a layover in San Francisco, and there was still a chance that I could get into SFO and make the last Maui connection of the night. But, for the time being, I was stuck in stormy Chicago, at the mercy of the travel gods.

My flight finally took off early that evening. I’d done the math, calculating this thing out like Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind. We were scheduled to land at 7:15 p.m. and my connecting flight to Maui was embarking at 7:20 p.m. Five minutes isn’t enough to make a transfer in an international airport, but the flight attendants comforted the few of us who were anxiously watching the live map on our screens.

Like the ticket promised, we landed at SFO at 7:15 p.m. The attendant asked the rest of the cabin to stay seated so the Hawaiian-bound six could exit first. She unlatched the door and yelled, Go! like she was dropping the starting gate.

There it is! Gate 58! I heard another passenger shout before waving her ticket in the attendant’s face and disappearing down the tunnel, celebrating like a Price Is Right contestant. I couldn’t believe it, we’d finally made it to the gate. I uncrumpled my boarding pass, flashed it in the air, and jetted through the doors.

Last call for Honolulu! a woman announced over the loudspeaker. It didn’t even register until I was halfway down the corridor and she said it the second time, Anyone else for Honolulu, Hawaii?

I pumped the brakes. Honolulu? I looked at my ticket. No. I was supposed to fly to Maui. I turned around and said, You mean Maui?

No … this is the flight for Honolulu. The Maui flight is over there. She pointed four doors down at another United Airlines employee who was slowly closing the door on Gate 62. Above the doorway, the monitor read, Kahului, Maui. Gate Closed.

Through the window, I could see the Maui airplane was still attached to its umbilical cord. I ran across the hall and faced the attendant. Ma’am. Please. I’m supposed to be on this flight. You have to let me on.

Sorry. Plane’s left already.

No, it hasn’t! It’s right there! My Chicago flight was delayed six hours in getting here … I’m begging you.

Either way, you’re not on this flight! I just counted myself. Everyone made it on this plane. Can I see your ticket? She closed the door and locked it. I stared hopelessly out onto the tarmac as the airplane fired up its engines.

Kim? I don’t see a Kim…? She banged loudly on the keyboard, biting her lip. Oh. I see what happened here. We pushed you to tomorrow.

What? Why would you do that?!

We figured you wouldn’t make the connection. So, we put you on tomorrow morning’s flight.

I was dumbstruck. But, I made it. I’m here. And my seat is right there. Except it wasn’t. I looked up and the plane vanished like a David Copperfield finale.

You can take it up with customer service, just down the hall.

You gave away my seat, I said, dejected, as I approached customer service.

Sir? asked the man behind the counter.

My seat. You changed my flight without my permission and now I’m stuck in San Francisco tonight when I should be in Hawaii. Just get my bags please and tell me where the hotel shuttle is.

The man behind the counter had thick, round glasses and beads of sweat trickling past his hairline. Sure. Lemme check on those bags for you. After a few minutes, he called over a supervisor, who whispered something in his ear before turning to me apologetically.

Mr. Kim, Hi. She looked like Phyllis from The Office. I’m sorry to hear about your long day. I have some bad news for you. For some reason, your bags made it on that flight to Maui.

My luggage was going on vacation without me. I walked outside the customer service center, raised my hand to the United Airlines sign, and flipped a bird. Then I took a photo of it.

Stranded in the Bay on a chilly, gray night, I was dressed for Hawaii in a T-shirt and colorful shorts. All I wanted was to take a warm shower and brush my teeth, but I didn’t even have a change of underwear. What I did have, however, was my community. I set my bags down and posted the photo of me flipping off the United sign to Instagram. In my caption, I wrote:

#FUCKUNITED for an especially painful travel week of delays and cancellations. Then, giving away my seat and sending off my luggage! So, today was a bad day for me. But it doesn’t have to be for you. Here’s where we get to reframe the narrative. Come visit me at the luxurious—and spacious—Courtyard San Bruno where they’re storing me for the night. I’ll be in the lobby at 9 pm. I’ll give you free advice, I’ll listen to you, let’s hang out and make friends. Someone bring me an XL T-shirt if you have a cool brand. Does anyone make socks?

THE HOTEL SHUTTLE was twenty minutes behind schedule, but what else was new? As we curled into the sleepy suburban neighborhood of San Bruno, I refreshed my Instagram page to see the post had over ten thousand likes and six hundred comments.

At 8:55 p.m., I stepped out of the shower in my dank room at the Courtyard San Bruno. I knew I had to follow up on my post, even if I didn’t really expect anyone to show up. At least the bar would be open all night. I put on a good face and the same outfit from the Worst Day Ever. Then I walked downstairs.

There were two people waiting for me in the lobby. I can spot my fans from a mile away—brown kids, rare sneakers, some type of headwear with proud logos, and friendly smiles.

Hi, I’m Ryan.

Yo, I’m Sam. Wow, I didn’t know if you’d actually be here.

Well, I didn’t know if you’d be here either, I replied. Let’s take a seat somewhere.

I pulled a couple chairs into the corner of the room just as a couple entered the sliding doors.

Bobby? Hey, I’m Taz, this is my girlfriend, Tyler. So, like, what do we do?

I’m not sure! This is my first time, too. So, find somewhere to sit and let’s introduce ourselves.

But the introductions never ended. A steady trickle of people continued to stream in to both the front and rear entrances of the hotel. We needed more space, so we pushed all the furniture to the edges and sat on the floor. Nobody knew what to expect.

For three and a half hours, we shared and listened. One girl was developing her own women’s footwear line and I asked her to sell it to the crowd, Shark Tank style. A couple of guys showed up in lowriders and so we had an impromptu car show in the parking lot. I bought everyone drinks and we cleared out the bar. There was only one person working the graveyard shift at the Courtyard San Bruno front desk. She’d never seen anything like this in her hotel. She asked if I was a celebrity and I said, No, I’m their friend.

More like they were my friends. A stocky Filipino in basketball shorts and a hoodie told me he was down the street smoking weed by himself in his car when my post popped up. He told himself, If Bobby replies to my comment on this post, I’ll take it as a sign to go. And I did. So he came.

One girl showed up by herself carrying a grease-stained In-N-Out bag. She walked into the middle of the lobby and interrupted the conversation we were having about streetwear trends.

Um, excuse me, sorry—Bobby? This is awkward. I have no idea who you are … but my boyfriend is a big fan of yours. He couldn’t come because he’s stuck at the office, so he called me and told me to bring you dinner. He said you must be hungry. I hope you like hamburgers?

While dialogue circled the room, I sat down with the girlfriend and shared french fries. Most everyone had their own brand and sought advice. Whenever my mouth was full, other people chimed in with lessons and anecdotes from their own entrepreneurial journey. If someone felt discouraged by their lack of progress, others would reassure them with stories of how they overcame similar failures. Another woman raised her hand and admitted that she had no idea who I was. She was a nurse in the area, had recently come across my book at the local bookstore, and had just so happened to read my Instagram post that night. She kept apologizing for not knowing who I was, but when I asked if anyone else was also unfamiliar with me outside of the book, ten other people raised their hands.

There must’ve been fifty to seventy-five people who showed up on that late Sunday night, which is even more amazing when you consider they came on an hour’s notice. Plus, every single one of them heeded the call and bore gifts. Three-packs of boxers, mint toothpaste, and of course, T-shirts. One kid curated some used books he thought I’d like. One girl brought me one of her paintings, another a handcrafted flower as a keepsake. I was leveled by the generosity. My heart was full. How many brand owners can attest to community action like this? When you build a brand centered on people over product, you are reminded time and again of the strength of these personal bonds. This Is Not a T-Shirt is not just a book, it’s a conversation, it’s a piece of advice, it’s a relationship.

A couple weeks after the Courtyard hotel meetup, I was roped into a late-night DM group chat with strangers. I accepted the message and immediately recognized some of the faces from San Bruno in the photos. Rewind to that night at the hotel, after I had retired to bed, more than half the attendees stayed downstairs, carrying on their discussions about life and streetwear or whatever. Many exchanged contact information and vowed to stay in touch, and this is what I was looking at in the group chat. Five familiar faces, each one a stranger to the others just weeks before, sitting around an Awesome Blossom at Chili’s, forging a different future with the help of new friends. All because of the Worst Day Ever.

Still, #FUCKUNITED.

STREETWEAR: 2020 ’TIL INFINITY

At the close of 2019, I started receiving end-of-decade interview requests from high fashion sources speculating on the death of streetwear. Because streetwear spent the last ten years enjoying a meteoric rise in culture and trends, the cool-guy cynics wanted to get ahead of an inevitable downturn. Nobody likes to be the last one at the party, but fashion people want to be the first to say a party’s dead. If streetwear wasn’t burning out, it needed to be extinguished.

Plus, it was silly to imagine a sprawling decade ahead that was still stuck on baggy hooded sweatshirts and loud sneakers. The year 2020 is one of those years, like 2000, that will forever sound like the future. And how we prefer to conceptualize the future is that it can be nothing like the past. They wear Star Trek onesies in space, not M-65s! Although the truth is that the world in its current state is always strongly reminiscent of what came before. (Futurists imagined the twenty-first century to have flying cars and robot servants, but the landscape today looks virtually identical to what we had fifty years ago. Except with smartphones and gluten allergies.)

In mid-December, Louis Vuitton’s artistic director and streetwear icon, Virgil Abloh, commented on the next year of streetwear: I would definitely say it’s gonna die, you know? Like, its time will be up. A month later, suiting replaced street-inspired design on the Paris Fashion Week runways. This seemed to further corroborate the anxious chatter that streetwear, as a fashion trend, was both suddenly and finally expiring in 2020 and beyond. Which is so right and so very wrong.

In some ways, I can’t help but agree. Streetwear on their terms is dead. They construe streetwear as a style: clunky sneakers, a cartoony tee, a logo-driven hoodie. The category stretches from Gildan sweats to Lululemon athleisure, and in their purview of the fashion space, those articles are less desirable. But once again: this is not a T-shirt. Streetwear transcends dress and music and art, just like rock ’n’ roll set the philosophical tone for an era. Streetwear defined a generational attitude toward art and commerce, brand-building, and financial autonomy. It was like punk, but about selling. It was like business, but not about selling out.

Streetwear is how you play sports and how you talk back to your teacher. It’s conscious of community, it’s protective of brand integrity. As this class of fuckboys and hypebeasts gains a seat at the table, industries, cultures, and nations will be affected and reshaped by the streetwear school of thought.

Sure, streetwear is dead. It died in the 1990s when department stores chewed up the urban labels to choke the independent retailers, then spit out their bones. It died in the 2000s when all-over print was all over. It died in the 2010s when Dickies replaced denim, when sneakers went vulc, when dad hats became dad’s hat. Streetwear died when China calmed the fuck down over COMMES des FUCKDOWN. Streetwear died so many times that I’ve written at least forty-seven think pieces about it. And yet, here we are. Bigger and brassier.

Ten years ago, in the wake of the Great Recession, streetwear was thin and dogged and reduced to basics. Retail was slaughtered, the wheat was divided from the chaff. Before e-commerce, store buyers dictated the bulk of buying power and passed over loud and garish designs for the guaranteed sell, the safe and minimal aesthetic. Ten years later, there are more streetwear brands than ever, capitalizing on the ease and ability of streamlined production, apps, and the shopper’s comfort with buying direct. Dior is collaborating with Shawn Stussy and Air Jordan, multiple streetwear television shows are in development, and the logos couldn’t be splashier.

Beyond that, brands have become intertwined with identity. There are nearly as many labels as there are people, each with their own built-in marketing mechanisms, unique voice, and perspective. I have fundamental issues with the entrepreneurial movement (namely the value of self over community), but it has granted many a voice, made them money, and above all, given them a sense of belonging. The streetwear spirit is at this intersection of capitalism and culture. This attitude is the last vestige of the independence, defiance, and combativeness that once upon a time designated limited-edition T-shirts as streetwear.

For every streetwear door that closes, fifty Shopify windows pop up. For every brand that stumbles, five more step forward, stronger and faster, having learned from the old school’s mistakes. Streetwear dies every night, but it is subsequently reborn and renewed by the morning. Ten years ago and ten years from now, we mark endings with new beginnings. Because the streetwear generation is about regeneration.

Rest in peace, streetwear. Can’t wait to see what you do next.

PROLOGUE

ON THE MORNING I wrapped my proposal for this book, I sat in the pews of a Baptist church east of downtown Los Angeles. I wore my black suit and kept my head above the stagnant air. The 10 freeway reverberated overhead, doling out the yammer of a jittery city. Even on a Saturday morning, L.A. had no time to pause for young Jimmy Briggs, who lay flat and motionless in the casket at the pulpit. His dad, the charismatic preacher Bishop Campbell, stood over him. He called on God to sort out this misunderstanding. The congregants, although taken by his heartache, were callous to the circumstances of Jimmy’s death. A couple of Black Panthers stood and called for vindication. A mother wept. Here lay another young black man, gunned down at twenty-one while running away from the cops.

I watched Jimmy grow up on my shop’s doorstep. He was a dark-skinned, handsome kid always wearing baggy pants and a flashy smile. He loved skateboarding, and he loved The Hundreds. So, we put him onto the program: keep skating and we’ll keep you dressed. The funeral attendees see this arrangement play out in Jimmy’s slideshow. He’s wearing our brand across his back in almost every photograph—even on the program’s cover. The photocopier’s ink coagulates around this portrait of Jimmy crouching down, proudly sporting one of our tees.

For Jimmy, and for so many others around the world like him, our brand has stood for more than T-shirts, stylish caps, and warm jackets. Fashion revolves around art, design, and trends, while clothing is rooted in sales, marketing, and necessity. The Hundreds, however, is powered by culture and community. We like to say, People over Product. It’s like your favorite music artist: you download the album, go to the show, and take home the tour merch to identify yourself with the musician’s art and attitude. With us, you visit our shop, you fraternize with our followers, and you wear our logos to profess that you’re down with the lifestyle. It’s bigger and deeper than a gang. The Hundreds is backed by a global army. That’s why we’re The Hundreds, as in strength in