i’ve always believed that clothes are a means of self-expression and not status, yet there is this overgrown hypebeast culture that exists where the symbol of status is in the logo. it seems that the more of the logo you have, the more expensive a garment may seem, the more it looks like you’ve made it.
our generation has this sentiment that clothes are in essence a form of cultural currency. clothing brands are representative of status signaling or cultural knowledge. but this can have a counter result in where people want to feel like they are in the know even when they don’t.
which leads me to my belief that not everything has to be a t-shirt. there are a ton of streetwear brands being created on instagram daily and they lack thoughtful execution and meaning. nowadays, the term streetwear has become a platform where the product is more important than the people and the intent of fostering a community of similar values is overshadowed by copying and pasting whatever trending graphic is in and selling it to the masses. this idea of statement and purpose has devolved to a place where the new cool is not what you are wearing and why but who you are wearing and how much.
the title of this project stems from lorem ipsum. lorem ipsum is a placeholder text commonly used in publishing and typesetting to demonstrate the visual form of a document or a typeface without relying on semantic content. this idea of “nonmeaning” parallels nicely to the message of my brand which is that brand name in general does not have any inherent meaning, only when you give it. under
the name lorem, this brand is both my commentary on clothes and a visual representation of my thought process.
this project questions the futility of brand name value and its trivial status, hypebeast clothing and its chokehold on young consumers, and the possibility of what clothes could look like without the name value attached. my goal is to start a dialogue that challenges intent of clothing design.
pratt institute
brooklyn, ny
bykyleson
special thanks to my professor:
frank franca
and to my models:
adares serrett
brianna booke
taylor pelouze
emmett lipert