Bigger Than Fashion How Streetwear Conquered Culture

The kaleidoscopic story of how an underground American subculture reshaped the global fashion industry.

Bigger Than Fashion is about the relentless rise of streetwear; it’s a captivating story of how a fiercely guarded counterculture, full of iconoclasts and hustlers, was disregarded until it skyrocketed into a massively influential lifestyle and fashion movement worth billions of dollars. Streetwear was built on the fusion of subcultures, unflinching DIY ethos, and a fiery sense of community that attracted everyone from skaters and hip-hop heads to punks and graffiti artists.

The clothes—well-designed staples like T-shirts, sweatshirts, and sneakers—became a system of in-the-know codes and the unofficial uniform of these creative outcasts. Since the first recognizable wave of streetwear started to form in the 1980s, it was a slow and steady swell over the next three decades. Then, it exploded until the hype-worthy graphic tees and covetable sneakers infiltrated every city and suburb in America.

Bigger Than Fashion will highlight key moments in streetwear’s history, deliver enthralling portraits of the movement’s most crucial players, and explore the journey that led the cutthroat subculture to mainstream sartorial dominance. It is a sweeping story of creativity, determination, and an insatiable thirst for recognition that will engage and entertain anyone interested in style, business, or culture.

Tyler Watamanuk is a contributor for GQ who has covered streetwear and style for the magazine since 2017. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Vice, Complex, and Highsnobiety, among other publications. Bigger Than Fashion is his first book.