Bigger Than Fashion: How Streetwear Conquered Culture

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

The world now calls it "streetwear." This is the story of how this fiercely guarded counterculture launched a lifestyle and fashion movement that has endured for nearly fifty years. It was born out of the undergrounds of American culture--a unique fusion of graffiti, hip-hop, surf, skate, and punk. These designers and brand operators established a creative tradition and cottage industry that they could call their own. It was a provocation of art and fashion, exclusivity and commerce that forever challenged the by-the-book definitions of artist, designer, and entrepreneur.

Since the first recognizable wave of streetwear labels started to form in the 1980s, it was a slow and steady swell over the next three decades until the clothes eventually exploded into mainstream fashion and popular culture. These brands turned T-shirts, hoodies, and sneakers in a covetable totems of status and big business wanted in on the magic. Streetwear's mindset and motifs soon dominated nearly every corner of the marketplace, from American malls and Tokyo boutiques to the luxury runways in Paris and Milan.

Bigger Than Fashion tells the decades-long journey--featuring brands like Stüssy, BAPE, Supreme, The Hundreds, and Off-White--that led the once-underground subculture of outsiders to mainstream sartorial dominance. It is a sweeping story of a unbridled creativity, unflinching DIY ethos, and an unstoppable drive to challenge the status quo.

Author: Tyler Watamanuk
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 11/18/2025
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.00w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9781982182861


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 09/19/2025 pg. 1

About the Author
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.