Following a stint as guest designer for Helmut Lang, Shayne Oliver has announced the official relaunch of his label, Hood By Air.
Hood By Air – which has been on hiatus since 2017 – is relaunching because, according to Oliver, "even now gentrification leaves no physical spaces for new, influential ideas to exist or reside. So Hood By Air will be a place for these ideas to have a home."
The four-fold relaunch has been broken down into "HOOD BY AIR," "HBA," "MUSEUM," and "ANONYMOUS CLUB". Each year, "HOOD BY AIR" will host a themed event or activation which will be represented and reinterpreted as collectible fashion products.
"HBA" will exist as a direct-to-consumer platform releasing products "without the constraints of old-world calendars and cadence."
"MUSEUM" refers to the archival pieces from the original Hood By Air brand, which guest designers-in-residence will reinterpret for a new generation. "By leveraging past icons and silhouettes born from young BIPOC creatives, a new future will be informed and developed" reads a brand statement.
Meanwhile, "ANONYMOUS CLUB" will function as an independent platform to support emerging talent.
HBA's 2020 relaunch will commence with a limited edition T-shirt dropping this Thursday along with a new limited-edition Cash Card designed in collaboration with the fin-tech Cash Card App. All proceeds from the T-shirt sales with go towards Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, Emergency Release Fund, and Gays & Lesbians Living In A Transgender Society.
The revival coincides with industry-wide disruption as a result of Covid-19 that is seeing many designers calling for a reconsideration of antiquated market systems, hierarchies, and schedules.
"There is another world that still needs to be created," says Oliver. " It's about tearing the old one down while figuring out a way to build a new one up, and in the midst of all of that, amplifying the ideas and conversations that we feel are important. 13-years-ago Hood By Air was birthed out of young, black, and POC creatives performing at the highest level. This was the contemporary output because no one else was doing it. Hood By Air resides here to allow risk and be vanguards for where it's going next. Hood By Air, the new institution."
