Fendi, Gucci, and Prada are all fine and fun to name drop in rap verses, but real fashionistas know what’s up beyond the big brands. Now that print-at-home services have become par for the course, entrepreneurial designers can start their own brands without millions of dollars in backing — and fashion overall is better off with these numerous underground clothing brands cropping up.
The democratization of the fashion world means that there’s a new designer debuting clothes every few minutes — and that it’s becoming harder to sort out the tripe from the treasures. With Instagram ads constantly bombarding our feeds with new lines — many of which are straight-up stolen designs — we’ve taken on the task of figuring out who to pay attention to.
From New York, to LA, to Tokyo, here are the best upcoming underground clothing brands we could find: