Supreme's fans have been treated to a hot Burberry collab, coffee cups, and new TNF jackets over the past few weeks so it's about time that the New York brand took it easy with a T-shirt-centric drop week.
Every season, Supreme interrupts its normal drop sequence with a selection of graphic T-shirts and hoodies. A few other bits arrive alongside the shirts 'n hoodies — this time, it's magnets and full-zip jackets — but they're the main sell.
This intermittent release usually includes a one-off photo tee that features a musician like GZA, Buju Banton, or Nas and — most important for the kids who make big bucks flipping this stuff — a new Box Logo ("Bogo" for short) T-shirt.
Now, fans only just took in the Burberry Bogo a couple weeks ago but April 14's drop promises tantalizing morsels like a Lil Kim T-shirt and Bogo T-shirt designed by Hunter S. Thompson's preferred artist, Ralph Steadman.
The resulting designs were not exactly what fans had in mind. Kinda.
See, the Lil Kim shirt is as good as you'd expect, with the rapper herself on the front and a line from Kim's feature on Mobb Deep's "Quiet Storm" remix printed on the shirt's rear.
Six other graphic shirts feature stylized Supreme branding, a photographic collage, some skull art from Steadman, and a "Still Talking $#@*" print, worn in the accompanying imagery by Earsnot, friend of Supreme and member of the IRAK graffiti crew.
But the Bogo baffled fans.
In place of Supreme's usual red rectangle logo, Steadman had daubed an explosion of red paint, leaving only the vaguest hint of any kind of geometric shape.
The resulting design is very much within Steadman's oeuvre — smeary paint splashes are very much his signature — but the abstraction divided fans.
Not hard to see why: though I quite like it, the design makes the T-shirt look like it'd just been worn by Andrew W.K. (anyone else remember him?) to play a show.
"Not quite the box logo we expected," commenters said. "Box logo without the logo."
"Whoever the designer is for supreme is living life on easy mode," said another, adding laughing emojis.
Others called the Bogo "crazy" (in a good way). "Bogo is fire. Hypebeasts are crying that they can’t read it."
The naysayers are apparently having a real effect on resale: StockX buyers are only willing to pony up about $75 for Steadman's Bogo T-shirt.
But I'm all for adventurous spins on a classic design — why just slap a red bogo on a shirt and call it a day?
Supreme's been gently toying with its signature design over the past few years, most notably in Fall/Winter 2020 when it devised a cross-shaped Bogo.
Ridiculous? Definitely. But at least it's different.
And for a symbol ubiquitous enough to garner its own Simpsons parody, that's good enough.
