Black cover plate with white serif title: Stüssy, Surf Origins and the International Tribe

Stüssy: Surf Origins and the International Tribe

Some labels travel by freight and some by friendship. Stüssy, begun in California in 1980 by a surfboard shaper who wanted his name on a T-shirt, travelled by friendship: a loose international circle of people in New York, London, Paris, Italy and Tokyo who wore the same jacket and were, one by one, the label’s embassies. Tokyo’s representative was Hiroshi Fujiwara, and the return traffic from Tokyo to California, in products and in people, is part of what the pages describe.

This chapter belongs to Ura-Harajuku: A Reader’s Guide to the Back Lanes and the Labels That Made Them. It follows the pages listed under References, flags where they disagree, and keeps our own interpretation to a single section at the end.

A Shaper’s Signature

Two pages agree on the start. Shawn Stussy, SoCal-born in Mr Porter’s phrase, shaped surfboards and began making graphic T-shirts in 1980 to promote them. A Complex oral history adds that he was known for putting punk, reggae and new wave art on his boards, and that the logo was his own surname written in a distinctive hand-lettered style. It does not name the town where the company began; it says only that the roots are in California, and that he shaped boards in Laguna in the summer.

The first links with Japan, the same oral history records through Paul Mittleman, came from surfboard shaping rather than clothing. That is a useful correction to the usual picture of a streetwear story. The route to Tokyo was a surfer’s route, and the clothing followed it.

Passports and Varsity Jackets

The circle that gave the label its second life was the International Stüssy Tribe. In the Complex account it began when Shawn travelled to London, Tokyo, Paris and elsewhere and brought together people of influence from each city. Named members include Hiroshi Fujiwara for Tokyo, Michael Kopelman for London, James Jebbia for New York, Jules Gayton and Alex Turnbull. Mr Porter lists a wider roll: in New York, Lono Brazil, Keith Haring, Dante Ross and Paul Mittleman; in Italy, Luca Benini, who went on to found Slam Jam and became the label’s first European distributor in the mid-1990s; in London, Kopelman, Barnzley Armitage, Alex Turnbull, James Lebon, Mark Lebon, Goldie and Mick Jones.

The tribe had a uniform. The Complex account says members had custom varsity jackets, and that a World Tour T-shirt listed the cities they came from. Mr Porter dates the World Tour shirt to 1989, and a new edition of the jacket to 2012; in 2006, it says, forty artists reinterpreted the 1989 shirt. The label’s own early history in that account is dotted with small events of the same kind: in 1990 its script appeared on a record by Malcolm McLaren, and 800 co-branded Carhartt jackets were handed out to influencers chosen by Tommy Boy, in Mr Porter’s telling.

Tokyo, 1990 and 1991

The first tribe party was held in Japan. One member, Jules Gayton, dates it to 1990 and calls it the big changing point. Mr Porter records a tribe meeting in Tokyo in 1991 whose guests included Michael Clark and Leigh Bowery. These are not necessarily two accounts of the same event, and the pages do not say whether they are. A magazine profile of Fujiwara, quoted in The Fujiwara Orbit: Goodenough, AFFA and the Making of a Scene, says he met Shawn Stussy in Tokyo and became the vanguard of the tribe in Japan.

Fujiwara’s own labels travelled the other way. The oral history says his Head Porter line was stocked in the Stüssy shop in New York. Mr Porter adds that special Japan-only pieces were made with Champion, without a date. Neither page names a first Japanese Stüssy shop or a Japanese distributor, and this chapter does not supply one.

Fifteen to Twenty Shops

By 1996, the Complex account says, Stüssy had about fifteen to twenty stores in Japan. The same year is the one in which the founder left. Frank Sinatra Jr., his business partner, says Shawn left at the end of 1995; another voice in the oral history says the label fell off hard in 1996 when he went; Mr Porter says he left in 1996, without acrimony, to spend more time with his family, and that Sinatra still runs Stüssy as an independent brand. After 1996, the oral history says, the company concentrated on Japan and Europe, and Japan was a huge factor in the brand’s longevity.

The New York shop has two dates in the pages. The oral history’s timeline gives 1990 for the first Stüssy store, at 104 Prince Street. Highsnobiety’s guide to Supreme says James Jebbia launched the Stussy NY Chapter store on Prince Street in 1991, after opening his own boutique, Union NYC, with Mary Ann Fuscio in 1989. Jebbia’s next opening, in April 1994, is described in Supreme in Japan: Six Doors and a Kinship with the Back Lanes. This chapter does not choose between 1990 and 1991, which may be two names for one door.

Later highlights from the pages: a special-edition Nike Air Huarache in 2000 made with Michael Kopelman and Fraser Cooke, according to Mr Porter, and a first Nike Dunk collaboration in 2001, according to the oral history. Shawn established a studio, S/Double, in 2009, the oral history says. The room for the label is Stüssy.

Our Reading: Friendship as Distribution

The pages record a company that, for its first decade and a half, expanded by acquaintance. A shaper met people on trips; the people were given a jacket; the jacket made them visible to one another; a party in Tokyo became, to one participant, the turning point. In our reading this is the nearest thing in the story to a business model, and it is worth noticing that the people it gathered went on to found much of what followed: a Tokyo designer with a label of his own, a New York retailer who opened a shop of his own, an Italian distributor who built a business on the same principle.

It is also the reason that Stüssy’s history cannot be told without Tokyo. Japan was not an export market that arrived late; on the evidence of the oral history it was a member of the circle from the early 1990s and, after 1996, a mainstay of the company. The wider shape of that exchange, American clothing studied, transformed and returned, is the subject of The History of Amekaji and of Japanese Streetwear: A Field Guide.

After Stüssy from the 1980s or 1990s, or a Tribe-era piece? Our Hunting Salon™ searches across Japan's private collector circles on your behalf.

Questions and answers

When was Stüssy founded?

In 1980, when Shawn Stussy began making graphic T-shirts to promote his surfboards.

What was the International Stüssy Tribe?

An informal circle of influential people in New York, London, Tokyo and other cities, wearing custom varsity jackets. Hiroshi Fujiwara represented Tokyo.

How important was Japan to the label?

By 1996 it had about fifteen to twenty stores there, and after that year, according to a Complex oral history, the company concentrated on Japan and Europe.

References

Dates and figures in this chapter were checked against these pages. Where accounts differ, the text says so.

Continue reading

Index terms: stüssy · stussy · shawn stussy · international stüssy tribe · hiroshi fujiwara · frank sinatra jr · stüssy japan · world tour t-shirt · slam jam · surf and street · ura-harajuku

Volver al blog

Deja un comentario

Ten en cuenta que los comentarios deben aprobarse antes de publicarse.