Streetwear Impact Report

Introduction

The Streetwear Impact Report began with a simple idea: defining streetwear. Still a relatively new market, in-depth reporting and analysis around streetwear were limited. Through a close collaboration between HYPEBEAST and Strategy&, PwC’s consulting firm, we set out to bridge that gap in information.

What resulted is a comprehensive data-driven overview of the streetwear market and consumer. The report invites the industry to take a closer look at how streetwear has disrupted all facets of fashion, ranging from creative development to marketing and distribution.

The report is split into four main articles:

  • 001 - Defining Streetwear details streetwear’s origin, key cultural components and considers the evolution of the face of streetwear.

  • 002 - Measuring Streetwear reports consumer spending habits, including how much they spend, best selling products and regional insights.

  • 003 - How Streetwear Communicates traces streetwear’s relationship with social media and the communication loop between consumer and brand.

  • 004 - How Streetwear Sells dissects streetwear’s tight-knit direct-to-consumer relationship, painting a picture of its innovative “drops” model and the burgeoning secondhand market.

The report also includes in-depth conversations with leading players in the fashion industry:

  • HF - Fragment design founder Hiroshi Fujiwara

  • DA - Contemporary artist Daniel Arsham

  • AA - Rimowa CEO Alexandre Arnault

  • JL - StockX founder Josh Luber

The research methods for the report included our consumer survey and industry survey. The consumer survey collected a total of 40,960 respondents across the globe while the industry survey collected a total of 763 respondents from a range of industry players.

The consumer survey was distributed in English, French, Korean, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese across HYPEBEAST’s global websites and social media channels. The industry survey was distributed directly to key players, companies and brands in the fashion industry. Both the consumer and industry surveys were incentivized with a series of giveaways. HYPEBEAST is committed to keeping user data safe and secure. For more information visit our Privacy Policy and general Terms & Conditions.


Authors: Enrique Menendez, Dr. Axel Nitschke

Contributors: Laura Neuper (lead), Philipp Hallegger, Katharina Schaper, Christina Laake, Sarah Nolte, Daniel Magar, Jeremy Grant, Emily Jensen, Jake Silbert

Report design: Jade Chung, Nirvana Garreffa, Jacky Liu

Illustrations: Alvaro Javier Cecchetti

Special thanks to the teams at Strategy& and HYPEBEAST who contributed to the creation of this report: Eddie Eng, Arby Li, Petar Kujundzic, Jason Dike, Felson Sajonas, Keith Estiler, Kavesh Subapanditha, Elton Yau, Irene Chung, Patrick Wong, Christopher Hui, Ka-Yue Yeung, Isha Lo, Jacky Liu, Emmanuel Maduakolam.


Strategy& is a global team of practical strategists committed to helping you seize essential advantage. As the only at-scale strategy business that’s part of a global network with deep and broad capabilities expertise, our team combines own strategic foresight with the experience of frontline teams across PwC to transform perspective into pragmatism, and ambition into action.

HYPEBEAST is the leading online destination for men’s contemporary fashion and streetwear. The media company has built a mass following on its know-how of what is relevant in youth culture. The high-traffic media platform is the premiere online destination for editorially driven commerce and news, covering: fashion, footwear, arts, design, music, entertainment and lifestyle.