Noah founder BrendonBabenzien put it plainly:“I think Supreme created theworld that the entire [fashion]industry lives in today.”Atkinson recalls that Helmut Lang was
the singular brand Jebbia referenced during
their time working together. “He only used
to wear Helmut Lang T-shirts,” he says. “He
was very particular about how the collars fit
him. He used that as a benchmark.”
Jebbia says that his standards for quality
were based on what was already being made.
“With a lot of the skate brands at the time, the
quality wasn’t good, the fabrics were kind of
crappy,” Jebbia says. “So we had to make our
product as good as the brands that kids in New
York were wearing: Polo, Nautica, Carhartt,
Levis.” By avoiding wholesale he could keep
prices down. “Our thing,” Jebbia says, “was to
try and make things as good as the best brands
out there—but not the fashion brands—and
have that quality that people are going to wear
these items for a long, long time.”
As the ambitions grew, the operation
became more sophisticated. Luke Meier,
who’d been put in charge of design in 2002,
supervised a growing sta≠ that had expanded
capabilities. Meier recalls that the immedi-
acy with which his designs hit the store were
huge boons for Supreme. “When you think
about a tailor shop or somewhere where
they’re really making a product, you can sell
it, like, a block away,” he says. “You feel very
closely connected to who’s buying it, who’s
wearing it, why it’s cool. It’s not like you’re in
some studio across the world.”
Meier moved on from his full-time posi-
tion at Supreme in 2009 and later launched
the label OAMC. In 2017 he and his wife,
Lucie Meier, were named co–creative direc-
tors of Jil Sander. “Surprisingly,” he says of
leaping from Supreme to a high-fashion lux-
ury brand, “it’s not so di≠erent.”
Angelo Baque, who founded the brand
Awake NY, started at Supreme in 2006, back
when, he says, the company was still a “mom-
and-pop” operation. In the years that followed,
the brand expanded rapidly, introducing newpieces like, say, the aforementioned oxford
shirts and cardigans. “Twelve years later every-
one is making those,” he says, “but for Supreme
to make a cardigan in 2007, that was fucking
revolutionary for the brand.”
For much of that period of expansion,
Brendon Babenzien was in charge of design
at Supreme (he has since launched his own
brand, Noah). “It was really fun,” Babenzien
says, “being able to indulge both the youth-
ful side—the side that I grew up with—but
also address some of the needs of our audi-
ence who had been with the brand from the
beginning.” In other words, making sweaters
that were as sought-after as Supreme’s tees.
“I had high hopes to have Supreme be able
to simultaneously make really progressive
things and truly classic things,” he says. “I
think we accomplished that.”
Pulling o≠ that kind of expansion, Jebbia
says, required paying careful attention to
Supreme’s customers. “We try and evolve,” he
says. “Twenty years ago, if we’d have put a fur
coat out at the shop, the skaters would have
stormed out. Our windows would have been
smashed. Young people are a lot more open-
minded today. We’re trying to make things for
today’s youth. We’re not stuck in a box.”ONE UNDENIABLE RESULT of all this growth
is that in the past few years, Supreme has
become massively popular. There’s a very good
chance that if you are not a Supreme obsessive,
you have a young cousin or niece or nephewwho is. There were also those who were there
from the beginning, like Leonard McGurr,
the artist better known as Futura, who has a
pair of camo cargo pants that he bought at
Supreme on Lafayette in 1995 and still wears
today. Guys who never felt ripped o≠ buying
a $42 camp cap or a $110 oxford shirt, so they
kept going back.
One of those guys is Andrew Rieth, now
a 44-year-old geophysicist and father of
five who lives near Houston and encoun-
tered Supreme back in 2001 while flipping
through a skate mag. He noticed a skater
wearing a Supreme hat, took interest in the
brand, and called the shop. They politely told
Rieth that they don’t do phone orders, so
he went where many people who were after
Supreme in those days went: eBay. “This
was before the modern-day Supreme hype,”
he says. Still, caps that retailed for $28 were
selling for $75. Later that year, on a trip to
New York, he visited the store for the first
time. “I was completely blown away when I
walked in the door,” he says. “I was expecting
a standard skate shop with standard skate
brands. Instead they had a full line of their
own clothing—super-thick hoodies, made-in-
USA selvage jeans, nylon M-65s with zip-in
pile linings that looked like something you
would dream of finding in a surplus store.
Everything had this really raw, authentic feel
to it. At the same time, the thought of spend-
ing $150 on jeans or a hoodie, or $300 for a
jacket, was completely foreign to me.”
Rieth walked out with just a tiger-stripe
camo hat, but in the years that followed,
before Supreme debuted its web shop, Rieth’s
collection grew. “Getting ahold of Supreme
was kind of a mission.” He’d make occasional
trips to New York, find pieces on eBay, and
trade with friends he met through online
forums. He was always impressed by the qual-
ity and design of the pieces. “The thing about
Supreme, even now, is that they have always
had this cool mix of military, sportswear,
workwear, and vintage that you can kind of
pick and choose from in a way that’s tailored
to your own taste. Over the years Supreme’s
collections have grown larger and generallyInside Supreme
Brooklyn, opened
in Williamsburg in
THESE PAGES: COURTESY OF SUPREME (2) October 2017.