It’s the young, independent brands offering community that are capturing the imagination of millennial and gen z consumers today – in an era where the 90’s zeitgeist is still alive and kicking.
Wasted Paris, a young independent streetwear brand founded in 2012 by Johann and Fang, was born out of their own passion for fashion, photography and 90’s musical movements, such as shoegazing, britpop and indie rock.
The label is doing a great job of putting Parisian skate culture on the map, with a fascination with urbanism, globalization and a strong desire to help young skaters fit in to the scene whilst keeping their individuality.
The brand very much embodies today’s movement through mixed references and interdisciplinary creativity- a theme that has subverted luxury, where high prices and avant-garde designs are no longer the sole drivers of desirability.
Which is why the present era of contemporary fashion and sports-luxury continues to take over. A running theme throughout Wasted Paris’s collections.
Besides just apparel, Wasted have their own skate team which fuels the authenticity behind their brand purpose. The founders met in 2008, with one coming from a fashion background and the other skate. And it was after witnessing the evolution of the skate culture around them that they knew they could create something special.
For Wasted, it was the community that brought that special factor. Friends and skaters who hanged round their shop formed their first ever skate team, which was curated to contribute back to the culture and document it’s evolution.
This purpose has been key ever since, with it fuelling both their content and product strategy, using both mixed references and interdisciplinary creativity to create end results that fit their community’s needs through both mediums.
I recently had the chance to visit Wasted Paris’s store back in January and you can really feel the strong community that they have created. Achieving cultural credibility is like winning an Oscar for streetwear brands and that is exactly what Wasted have done. They know exactly when, where, and how to speak to their audience and have defined their distinctive voice which allows them to stay close to the core consumer that led to the brands existence.
You can check out Wasted Paris 2019 “Future Is Now” Spring Summer Collection here, a collection that draws inspiration from a period full of demands, particularly around global warming and the utopia of a free world here
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