S/DOUBLE: Vision from the Future, Energy from the Past
Part 1: Shawn Stussy
Shawn Stussy needs no introduction, nor does his headline-making departure from his eponymous label back in 1996.
STUSSY was born divinely or accidentally - depending on how you want to look at it. While slinging surfboards at a trade show in the 1980s, customers had their eyes caught by another product: the white t-shirt he was wearing with the name “Stussy” emblazoned on it. These were not for sale, but by then end of the trade show, he had sold 1000 of them. Born out of the surf lifestyle and Laguna Beach mindset, STUSSY has been the gold standard for contemporary streetwear since its inception.
In the late 90s, rumours started to swirl that Stussy would be leaving his business. His departure was officially announced in 1996 but Stussy refused to comment publicly, leaving many to speculate about bad blood and creative disputes.
In 2008, rumours circulated again about Shawn Stussy's potential comeback to the fashion industry. This became a reality with the launch of
S/DOUBLE. The brand's aesthetic leaned towards a more mature style, blending derby shoes with meticulously crafted surfwear. While this combination seemed unconventional, the involvement of Shawn Stussy lent clarity to the concept and a highly sought after, often grailed streetwear brand was born.
Stussy’s design philosophy was paramount to his new project, telling journalists, “I don't want to write S/Double on t-shirts for the next 20 years. I would like to - as with Stussy - make the element of the design of the product paramount, versus embellishing it with trendy frosting. I want to build the cake and make the cake good, and the frosting… you can adjust to sweeten up the situation.”
You know what it never was? Serious. It was never that serious. Shawn Stussy shrugged his shoulders as he rattled off a disinterested list of apparel that
STUSSY sell to a BBC interviewer back in the 90s. While James Jebbia, then the store manager of STUSSY New York who would later go on to found Supreme, explained that customers would collect the snapbacks in each colour, every hint of disbelief in his voice. Today, we recognise this as peak hypebeast behaviour. But back then, long before StockX and vintage streetwear stores, STUSSY was breaking this ground for the first time. The same BBC segment features a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it young Hiroshi Fujiwara modelling for STUSSY. Fujiwara would go on to become a tastemaker in the Tokyo streetwear scene popularising hip hop abroad and eventually becoming one of the professed “godfathers” of streetwear with his own brand, Fragment Design.
Within the same sentence, Shawn Stussy was breezily explaining the natural birth of the International Stussy Tribe. He realised that the casual streetwear trending in the US was also popular in cities like London. STUSSY had become, accidentally, part of a global movement.
Emphasis on the accidental part. Shawn Stussy was quick to explain that he was figuring it out as he went along, following an intuition that was clearly guided by the streetwear gods, and inadvertently making millions as he went.
“Everybody’s out looking for an identity”, he said, “There’s a fine line and a natural growth pattern to it.” Shawn went on to describe scarcity and exclusivity marketing (unironically referring to his “homeboys” throughout) at a time when it was rarely applied to fashion brands. He couldn’t have known that he was describing the dominant business model that hype brands would adopt come the late 2000s.
The shockwaves emanating from Stussy’s sphere are truly off the Richter, filling gaps in the youth scene that have gone undocumented and thus can only be guessed at. The comment sections on any old school STUSSY video are populated with people pointing out serendipitous connections, faces that went on to change the scene in their own way, or regular folks scrambling to establish a connection to the movement; Dads that worked in-store, T-shirts that were passed down like precious heirlooms, and flash autobiographies about people’s first-time walking into a STUSSY shop.
These are the kinds of fairy tales that make contemporary streetwear fans weak in the knees. But why did it all come to an end for Shawn Stussy?
Part 2: The writing on the wall is… vandalism?
Before the departure of their founder, STUSSY was on the up. The nighttime rattle of a marble in a spray can was bottled by the brand and harnessed in the form of a strong visual language and vibrant typography. Thus, the graphic element of streetwear became aspirational – a hallmark of the subculture. Today, there is no streetwear brand untouched by the concept of eye-catching graphics and bold textual styles. What’s more, STUSSY has never been married to one motif, but has dabbled in the iconography of many.
Suddenly, the spiral of a curly ‘S’ that was reserved for the untalented graffiti tagger was sought after on T-Shirts. Its regular, hand-drawn appearance set it apart from corporate logos, signaling the rebellious and authentic spirit of STUSSY.
The detritus of our lives was finding a home in the brand’s visual dictionary. The 8-ball - reader of fortunes - drew from pool halls and urban street life, symbolising luck and chance with a subversive edge. Similarly, the fuzzy dice, typically hung from rear-view mirrors, were a playful nod to car culture and retro Americana.
While the low-brow was being elevated, the high-brow was being brought down a notch. The interlocked "S" or Stussy No. 4, originally inspired by Chanel's interlocking C’s, is another enduring motif. Resembling an artfully balanced double "S", it represents STUSSY’S evolution from a niche surfwear label to a globally recognized streetwear powerhouse.
Renaissance art wasn’t safe either. Their playful juxtaposition with Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus exemplifies a penchant for cultural mashups and irreverent creativity. By placing its signature scrawl alongside classic artworks, STUSSY injects a sense of modernity into timeless masterpieces.
The bold graphical appeal of the bent crown logo dates to 1989 and is a subtle subversion on the adage, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” from Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 2. Instead, the brand invokes their associations with casual skatewear with the slogan “easy lies that head that wears the crown”. The bent crown symbol is featured on some of the most sought-after vintage and grail STUSSY pieces in recent years.
The "International Stussy Tribe" slogan underscores STUSSY’S role as a unifying force within youth culture, emphasizing inclusivity, creativity, and a collective identity that extends beyond fashion to encompass music, art, and lifestyle. It touches on accessible street sports with Olympic potential such as skateboarding, which has the power to reach seemingly remote communities – anywhere there’s a concrete slope the sound of polyurethane wheels is sure to follow. As such, the "International Stussy Tribe" slogan remains a powerful expression of the brand's enduring global impact and its ongoing resonance with generations of trendsetters and street sport athletes around the world.
With their impressive repertoire of symbols, the vandal’s area of expertise had become free game for any fashion brand to appropriate. But despite the droves of newly copyrighted imagery, the meteoric rise to fame, and sharing his last name with the brand, Shawn Stussy’s story with his business was hurtling insuppressibly to an end.
Part 3: A new beginning
From surfboard shaper to T-shirt slinger, Shawn Stussy moulded the history of his brand very early on in its inception. The brand’s origins can be traced back to 1980 when Stussy began adding his distinctive signature to his handmade surfboards. The stylized logo quickly gained attention and popularity among surfers and locals in Laguna Beach, marking the informal beginning of Stussy as a clothing brand. By 1984, STUSSY was officially launched as a streetwear label, transitioning from surfboards to apparel. The brand's early designs, heavily influenced by surf culture but with a unique urban twist, struck a chord with the emerging youth subcultures of skateboarding, hip-hop, and graffiti art.
Throughout the late 1980s and into the 1990s, STUSSY became synonymous with the burgeoning streetwear movement, characterized by its bold graphics, vibrant colours, and comfortable yet stylish clothing. Not only this, but STUSSY have been involved in some of the greatest streetwear collaborations of the past decade, proving themselves as innovators of the most coveted kind. Some of the most popular collabs include Comme des Garçons, Patta, Nike (notably the Spiridon Cage Fossil Sneakers), Supreme, Dior and GORE-TEX. The brand's global reach expanded rapidly, opening flagship stores in major cities worldwide and establishing itself as a cornerstone of streetwear.
Despite changes in trends over the decades, STUSSY has remained relevant through new iterations of its original designs while staying true to its core aesthetic and independent spirit. Its enduring appeal lies in its ability to blend street style with high fashion influences, consistently producing collections that resonate with longtime fans and new generations. Today, STUSSY remains a symbol of authenticity and creativity within the ever-evolving landscape of streetwear.
Reflecting on the quick and almost accidental rise to popularity that the brand experienced, Shawn Stussy told Acclaim mag that, "It became something I had never sought. With that came a lot of responsibility, twenty-hour workdays and all the money in the world. But if you don't have time to go out and spend it, what's the point?"
But the magic surrounding STUSSY stayed with him and soon, he felt the itch to return to the fashion world in the form of
S/DOUBLE, “Just to be engaged again”, he said. “My three boys that I left my business to raise are now coming of age and as a full-circle guy it's time to re-engage with the world and see if I can capture the spirit that I had in the early '80s when it was all about the right reasons. Not really knowing if it can happen, but why not take the adventure and see?”
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STUSSY and
S/DOUBLE online or in-store with Glue Store.
