Items14The creator’s order
  1. 1X-girlX-girlSonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon and stylist Daisy von Furth started X-girl as the women's sister label to the skate brand X-Large, and it became a shorthand for 1990s downtown New York cool. Its legend rests on one spring morning in 1994, when Sofia Coppola and Spike Jonze staged a guerrilla show…0
  2. 2Sean JohnSean JohnThe label that made the fashion establishment take a rapper's brand seriously. Sean Combs debuted Sean John in 1998 and launched it at Bloomingdale's a year later, and in 2004, after four straight nominations, he won the CFDA's Menswear Designer of the Year award, the industry's own seal of…0
  3. 3RocawearRocawearThe biggest money story in rap fashion. Jay-Z and Damon Dash, the founders of Roc-A-Fella Records, launched Rocawear in 1999, and by 2003 it was reportedly netting $700 million a year in sales through department stores like Macy's. In 2007 Jay-Z sold the brand's rights and intellectual property to…0
  4. 4L.A.M.B.L.A.M.B.Gwen Stefani launched L.A.M.B. in 2003 after a short handbag collaboration with LeSportsac, naming it after her solo debut, Love. Angel. Music. Baby. What set it apart from a typical pop-star line was commitment: it showed at New York Fashion Week every year from 2005 to 2011 and returned to the…0
  5. 5Billionaire Boys Club (clothing retailer)Billionaire Boys Club (clothing retailer)Pharrell Williams and Nigo, the A Bathing Ape founder, built Billionaire Boys Club and its sister label Icecream together. Accounts of the start date differ: the brand's own anniversary history says 2005, while most histories put it at 2003, when Pharrell was already wearing it in the "Frontin'"…0
  6. 6The Jessica Simpson CollectionThe Jessica Simpson CollectionThe licensing deal done brilliantly. Founded in 2005, the Jessica Simpson Collection is not a design house in the runway sense: it is a lifestyle brand built through licensing partners, with Camuto Group long handling its footwear. The model worked. By 2015, when Sequential Brands bought a…0
  7. 7Victoria Beckham (fashion label)Victoria Beckham (fashion label)The strongest answer to anyone who doubts a pop star can become a real designer. The former Spice Girl started her label in 2008 with a ready-to-wear debut at New York Fashion Week, and in 2011 it won the Designer Brand award at the British Fashion Awards. It was also, for years, a business that…0
  8. 8Pretty GreenPretty GreenLiam Gallagher founded Pretty Green in 2009 and named it after a song by The Jam, which tells you exactly where it was aiming: parkas, polos and mod-leaning menswear for fans who already dressed like him. It grew into stores and department-store concessions, but it was exposed when House of Fraser…0
  9. 9Golf WangGolf WangTyler, the Creator started Golf Wang in 2011 as an offshoot of the Odd Future crew, its name a scrambled "Wolf Gang," and it is the clearest case of merch growing up into a label. The turning points came quickly: a first runway show at Made L.A. in 2016, the Golf le Fleur footwear line with…0
  10. 10October's Very Own (OVO)October's Very Own (OVO)Drake's brand, built with Oliver El-Khatib and Noah "40" Shebib, turned an owl logo into one of the most recognizable marks in Canadian streetwear. Its webshop opened on Drake's 26th birthday in 2012, and its first flagship opened in downtown Toronto in December 2014, followed by stores in Los…0