When Supreme opened doors in Los Angeles in 2004 after thriving in New York since the 90s, founder James Jebbia triggered a West Coast subculture of street style that married skating, fashion and art. The skate and simplicity-obsessed brand caught the attention of others, and the Fairfax neighborhood quickly evolved from a primarily Orthodox Jewish community to a primarily Orthodox Jewish community loaded with dope streetwear stores we know and love to hate today.
Below, we spoke with representatives from 11 streetwear shops on Fairfax and Melrose to get a feel for what each brand brings to the scene:
Joyrich Los Angeles
Sales Associate: It’s a really fun brand that started 10 years ago. It’s owner is Japanese. He was LA-based, so it is kind of an Asian-infused, streetwear style brand. We try to focus on old school LA streetwear, but we add a little “hip” to it—like oversized clothes, baggy jeans and fun colors. We have a character—our teddy bear. It’s a fun brand to wear. A lot of celebrities wear us for photo shoots because we are loud. We have fur clothes. It is just funky. Joyrich is funky.
RIPNDIP
Sales Associate: RIPNDIP is swag shit. All these rappers and girls like it. It’s the swaggest shit. that cool dope shit.
AAPE by A Bathing Ape
Sales Associate: AAPE is influenced by everything from anime to the military. It’s very exciting.
Diamond Supply Co
Sales Associate: Diamond Supply Co. started as a hardware brand for skateboarding, and then the owner decided to start making t-shirts. The t-shirts transitioned to hoodies, jackets and shoes … and now we’re here.
HUF
Sales Associate: HUF is a skate brand. It’s skatewear, but it is affordable, and both sexes can wear it, which is cool. Our whole thing is pretty easy going.
The Hundreds
Sales Associate: It’s a Los Angeles, California cultural brand. The Hundreds is a lifestyle community brand made up of a large community of multicultural people. It’s become a figure that stands out point and speaks to the stature of Los Angeles.
DOPE
Sales Associate: I would describe DOPE's look as a Fairfax, LA street style that can accommodate all kinds of demographics, young and old, because we also carry other brands aside from just DOPE. The store as a whole is great for LA culture.
Melody Ehsani
Sales Associate: We are a women’s empowerment brand. It’s very curated and powerful. As you can see around the store, a lot of the pieces are about empowerment, femininity, embracing your uniqueness and really stepping into who you are.
FourTwoFour on Fairfax
Sales Associate: We bridge the high-end and the low-end part of streetwear and street culture. I think that's why we have made a mark in fashion—we're a unique brand.
Pink Dolphin
Sales Associate Pink Dolphin is like something we always emphasize as “a way”, so the meaning behind the brand is to ride your own way. You know, whatever you wanna to do, just ride it all the way to the top.
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Yifei Shen is an editorial intern at Citizine who loves to express herself through photography. She always dresses in black and wears a hat to maintain an air of mystery.
