Can Streetwear Still Be Political?

On a Friday night this past New York Fashion Week, while others in the industry were hopping around to parties, Victor Vegas was inside a community centre in Bushwick, Brooklyn, selling pieces from his latest seasonal collection alongside Latin American food vendors.

Vegas, whose indigenous heritage is at the core of his five-year-old streetwear label, Primer Rebelde De America, had participated to be a vendor at a fundraiser organised by NYC Migrant Solidarity, a grassroots mutual aid fund that supports recently arrived migrants in New York.

“If I sit here and think about what the next four years will be like, I would be doing nothing but sitting in misery all day,” said Vegas, a streetwear veteran who worked at New York-based Awake for nearly a decade. “I can’t afford to do that — and it has nothing to do with anything monetary. It has to do with kids seeing this brand and seeing it stands for something greater than itself.”

Primer Rebelde De America is one of many streetwear brands navigating the shifting cultural climate in the US following the election of Donald Trump. Streetwear is largely indebted to communities of colour, and after 2020, when the Black Lives Matter movement became a rallying cry against injustice more broadly, many labels leaned into celebrating their racial or ethnic identities. Brands such as Denim Tears, which tells stories about the Black diaspora through its clothing, and Born X Raised, which uses streetwear to highlight the diversity of Los Angeles and the indigenous background of late co-founder Chris “Spanto” Printup, garnered commercial success while igniting conversations with their designs.

“There was some kind of switch after 2020 for me where I was like: OK, I only want to spend money with brands who give a fuck,” said Jourdan Ash, founder of True to Us, an online platform and brand for Black and brown women looking to be seen and heard in the streetwear and sneaker industry.

But the American political landscape has changed significantly in the past few years, along with fashion. Even before Trump’s reelection, the industry had started to step away from DEI initiatives and disengage from politics. The first month of Trump’s presidency has been a barrage of executive orders targeting communities of colour through aggressive immigration enforcement and the dismantling of DEI initiatives, fuelling a larger cultural shift away from the values that these identity-forward streetwear brands have championed.

Brands established as a way to speak to America’s marginalised groups are staying resilient.

“There will always be people who want to support emerging and diverse brands that promote DEI,” said Tobias McIntosh, the founder of the inner-city-centred skateboard brand Crenshaw Skate Club. “Just because the higher powers want to take it away doesn’t mean they can halt the movement. If anything, it makes it stronger.”

Diverse Voices

Even though large corporations such as Meta, Target and Walmart that are rolling back DEI programmes have grown quiet about prioritising diversity, streetwear’s BIPOC-owned brands don’t plan to do the same, and that’s not what their customers want.

McIntosh believes one of the biggest changes that occurred in contemporary streetwear culture in the 2020s was that consumers became less interested in hyped brands with an aura of exclusivity and began gravitating towards brands that projected a clear message about who they are and what they represent. It’s a trend among consumers broadly. In a 2024 survey by Edelman, 60 percent of consumers across 14 countries said they buy, choose or avoid brands based on politics, and 84 percent needed to share values with a brand before buying it.

“The BIPOC community still really cares, and what we’ve noticed with brands that still care is that it’s working for them,” said Jusepet Rodriguez, who co-founded the BIPOC-focused marketing agency Colorway with his brother, Leo.

Crenshaw Skate Club’s business, for example, has continued to grow over the past five years and attracted partners like the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers, collaborating on merch with the team. It’s now working on designing more “mature” styles to attract an older audience, according to McIntosh.

Rodriguez said Colorway has only grown since its founding in 2019 and that its clients, which include brands such as Adidas, Levi’s and The North Face, are still invested in working with diverse communities. He pointed out Willy Chavarria’s recent Adidas collaboration being centred on Los Angeles’ Chicano culture as an example.

Primer Rebelde De America, which Vegas has just started focusing on full-time, has attracted retailers such as Union Los Angeles and Dover Street Market.

“There’s no better time than now to fully dedicate myself to this entity because it’s not just a brand but an ideology that carries communities,” he said.

Streetwear’s Resilience

While the political climate in the US hasn’t stopped the momentum of identity-forward labels, being outspoken can require other business adjustments. McIntosh said Crenshaw Skate Club’s business focuses on DTC because it allows him to control the way his label is presented, pointing out how everything from pop-ups to larger brand partnerships are usually centred around inner-city youth in South Central Los Angeles.

Vegas said he is constantly having a conversation with himself about how to maintain Primer Rebelde De America’s core ideals, themes and dignity while existing as a commercial fashion brand. He’s wary of pursuing larger brand partnerships, but he’s also inspired by how mentors such as Spanto used collaborations to tell larger stories about indigenous communities.

“It’s about finding a balance,” he said.

Steven Barter, founder of the label Barriers Worldwide, wants to broaden his label’s reach globally by offering more “digestible” products such as flannel shirts, even as he remains committed to using Barriers Worldwide’s graphic streetwear as a vehicle to platform historical Black figures from civil rights leaders like Malcolm X to artists such as Pimp C.

Though in the conflict between business and the creative side, one sometimes has to win out. While Barter is open to suggestions around business strategy, he declines to take any suggestions about the label’s artistic direction.

“This is my vision and this is what I’m doing, so I don’t want to change it for anybody,” he said.

Whether it’s through a provocative T-shirt by the Mexican-American label Paisa Boys that simply reads “Fuck ICE” or Kids of Immigrants’ campaign for its Nike Air Max SNDR collaboration celebrating the contributions of immigrant families, streetwear continues to be an outlet for diverse communities. Brand owners and creatives, like Rodriguez of Colorway, believe now is the time for them to double down on the work they do.

“The reason why I wake up in the morning is to continue to tell these stories,” Rodriguez said. “We also feel like the support is only going to double and triple because now, more than ever, the solidarity and support is really important.”