Hood By Air, since its launch in 2006, quickly became known for disrupting the fashion world—whether it was presenting a show in a gay sauna in Paris or shooting a campaign with Jamaican pornstars—but, in 2017, ceased operation after its AW17 show so Oliver could dedicate himself to designing capsule collections for Helmut Lang and co-founder Leilah Weinraub could focus on her Whitney Museum piece Shakedown.
West asked Oliver, “Hood By Air has been in hibernation. What have you been up to? Why are you hibernating?” The designer responded saying, “Hood By Air had these emotions and this ethos that I respect, and I wanted to continue respecting that as much as possible. Am I meant to constantly be working on something without knowing exactly what I’m aiming toward? I didn’t really feel like it was healthy.”
In a separate interview with SSENSE, Oliver confirmed the Hood By Air relaunch, explaining that “a temporary retail store won’t be the first thing we will do, but we will introduce new models inside our system that will offer contemporary retail experiences.”
While an official launch date hasn’t been announced, you can probably expect some history-making hype. Looking back at HBA creating a custom pastel-pink look for Rihanna’s 2016 VMAs performance or their collaboration with Pornhub and photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, the label set the stage for the sort of unexpected high/low collabs that are so commonplace now.
In the Interview chat, West asked Oliver what it means to him to be credited with elevating streetwear.
“The culture it comes from is very insular,” Oliver said. “It’s weird because they say that about fashion people, but it’s the same thing within the streetwear world, you know what I mean? When I see streetwear, I see silhouettes. Some people tend to be more intuitive about it, like the people that I grew up with from inner-city backgrounds, but in the larger discussion about luxury, streetwear is already in the merchandising plan.”
Read the full Interview story here.