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Merch is a way to celebrate institutions you love, even when they aren’t “fashion,” and our own collabs are guided by that feeling. For Not In Paris, we've teamed up with two cultural institutions — Café de Flore and Perrotin — and we now explore how this specific category of merch has taken over the sartorial sphere in recent times.
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When a branded baseball cap from JStor, the academic library, resurfaced on the timeline a few months ago, a hot-headed furore took over Twitter, with people searching for a way to cop. The $15 dad hat — which has been out of circulation since 2017 — has now become somewhat of a grail, with eBay cast-offs going for over $200. It would seem that between the scarcity of the OG cap and these ludicrous resale markups, JStor had stumbled into Supreme territory.
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Modern merch dates back to the '60s when, during the post-war boom, printing businesses in Miami began to emblazon beach towels and tees with the names of local holiday resorts.
Yet merch saw a renaissance in 2016, when record labels began to enlist the support of design studios, transforming concert memorabilia into fully-fledged fashion categories. The clothing sold at Justin Bieber’s Purpose World Tour was designed by Fear of God's Jerry Lorenzo, and wound up as a capsule collection at Barney’s. Similarly, Kanye's Life of Pablo gear was the work of Virgil Abloh collaborator, Cali Thornhill DeWitt, and had fans lining up around the block.
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Then came 2018. Logo heavy, promotional apparel had gone from novelty to luxury: sacai's AW18 collection stamped with The New York Times branding; A-COLD-WALL* pieces with London’s National Gallery; Virgil Abloh's line of Air Force 1s with MoMA; and Raf Simons x The Andy Warhol Foundation during his last year at Calvin Klein. As a result, our attitudes towards luxury began to expand.
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As merch warped from cultural to cult institutions, The Cut heralded the rise of Zizmorcore – “an embrace of hyperlocality” – whereby you can wear a slice of the city on your sleeve. Nostalgia quickly became a coping mechanism for those of us stuck in a seemingly endless carousel of lockdowns, so it’s little surprise that merch, a keepsake of sorts, found such resonance. If you can’t go to your favorite restaurant or museum, the least you can do is wear the T-shirt.
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● SPEAKING OF CULTURAL MERCH...
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We hooked up with Perrotin on a co-branded collection for Not in Paris 3. One of the biggest galleries in the game, Perrotin has locations in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Seoul, and Shanghai.
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On its artist roster is MR., Takashi Murakami, Iván Argote, JR, Madsaki, and Daniel Arsham. Safe to say, calling the gallery influential is an understatement.
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