Words by Jamay Osborn
The brand that changed fashion forever has injected fresh blood after 7 years
The brand that changed the way we look at fashion, VETEMENTS pronounced “vet-MAHN” made me think about the industry that we work in and made us not think too seriously about how we dress. The brand created hype when Gosha Rubchinsky walked in the SS16 show in the very well-known DHL t-shirt in October 2015. The brand rose to success after the top was seen on many influential people, then became a household name and we saw the brand on many notable names like Rihanna, Kanye West, and Celine Dion. VETEMENTS had some of the most iconic pieces of the early 2010’s with the famous lighter boots, oversized clothes boundary pushing slogans and all innovative, risk taking and disturbing.
The founder Demna Gvasalia stared his career at Margiela. The brand made him think about influence and appropriation as he said in an interview with the Guardian “Researching how Margiela influenced me as a designer meant touching on some delicate questions about influence and appropriation. It seemed important to me to ask those questions. I put the Tabi in because I wanted to directly address the issue of appropriation. What is a source, what is an influence, what is a copy?” Now Demna is one of fashions most bankable designers in the industry today.
The brand has collaborated with many others like Reebok, DHL, Umbro, Tommy Hilfiger, Juicy Couture and Manolo Blahnik. They even collaborated with the German band Ramstein. Demna has a very creative team surrounding him but there is no one that works closer to Demna then the Russian stylist Lotta Volkova. Lotta has a very big influence on the asthetic and feel of the collections together with the look of the runway and she also has been a model in most of the collections. Lotta is a real force within this industry.
We still know and love pieces from these collaborations like the velour catsuit with the word “juicy” on the butt, and the oversized denim button up with elongated sleeves from the Carhartt colab, btw the most memorial pieces from Demnas time at VETEMENTS were the shoes, oh the shoes, always made me feel amazing from the lighter sock boots to the leg high boots that he did with Manolo Blahnik and we must not forget those big chunky platform boots with the flames, major that’s all I can say just major. There are also those iconic slogan tees that said “may the bridges I burn light the way’’ and may others.
Now the brand has been handed down to Demna’s brother Guram Gvasalia in 2018. The brand has still got that underground rebelling feel to it but now as of July 2022 is now called VTMTS. VTMTS is still one of main brands to influence “street style”.
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