![]() ![]() Supreme has been locked in an arms race with bot networks for years, introducing measures like Captcha forms and bot detection to stymie hypebeast hackers. The problem wasn’t with the website but, seemingly, with the bots. It would be like, there's a huge problem with the website if they're still in stock after five minutes.” The stock-clearing bot swarm, in other words, had not materialized. So Steiner was surprised when I told him that by Thursday afternoon, hours after the prescribed 11:00 am drop time, I could still add practically every product from the North Face collection to my cart. A little over two years since Supreme was acquired by The North Face parent company VF for $2.1 billion, the New York label has started to resemble something that was once basically unimaginable: a regular fashion brand. These days, the experience feels distinctly different. The Supreme business model was frustrating, but it was also brilliant at breeding obsession: the more you wanted something, the harder it was to actually buy it. ![]() Like many other young men before and after me, I loved every second of the experience. (As many hilariously scathing Yelp reviews over the years attest to.) Once I finally got inside, I found my prize-no thanks to the staff of brusque skaters who, ever since James Jebbia opened the original Supreme shop on Lafayette Street in 1994, have been famously unhelpful to interlopers. So I had to go to the store in LA, where I waited in line in the hot sun on Fairfax with no idea of whether the hat was even in stock. ![]() Like just about every other piece that dropped on Supreme’s website that week, it sold out in an instant. About ten years ago, I was determined to buy a hunter green moleskin five-panel hat emblazoned with the brand’s iconic box logo. Anyone even remotely interested in menswear has experienced the unique and often confounding experience of trying to purchase something from Supreme. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |