When Shayne Oliver announced the return of Hood By Air in an interview with SSENSE last spring, fashion collectively held its breath. Now, over a year on, it can finally exhale, as the game-changing designer has revealed a few more details of what HBA’s long-awaited comeback is going to look like.
Taking to Instagram this afternoon, Oliver laid out his plans for the future of the label, which this time around is set to be split into four areas: Hood By Air, HBA, Museum, and Anonymous Club (stay with us).
Unsurprisingly, Hood By Air will lead the charge, setting a yearly ‘theme’ through events and activations, and putting out collectible fashion that examines what ‘luxury’ means. HBA will take Hood By Air’s lead as a consumer platform where you’ll be able to get your hands on products, while Museum is set to host the brand’s succinct but legendary archive, set to be re-interpreted and reimagined as part of future collections.
Following on from his stint as designer-in-residence at Helmut Lang back in 2017, Oliver brings the concept to Hood By Air, detailing plans to invite young, largely BIPOC creatives to take the reins of the house. Anonymous Club, meanwhile, will take the form of an independent platform dedicated to emerging artists, musicians, and designers who’ll be invited to collaborate with Oliver and the label.
For those among us holding out for merch, there’s further good news. This Thursday (July 16) will see the launch of a limited edition charity t-shirt, as well as a Hood By Air cash card, created in partnership with Cash App, with proceeds from both going to initiatives including Black Trans Femmes in the Arts and GLITS.
With Hood By Air rising out of New York in the mid-00s, the label changed the face of fashion – with countless designers drawing inspiration or out-and-out emulating (but never bettering) its anarchic, confrontational ethos in the years following.
Still, Oliver explains his work in the industry is nowhere near done: “There is another world that still needs to be created, 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 that, amplifying the ideas and conversations that we feel are important. Thirteen 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 to where it’s going next. Hood By Air, the new institution.”
With further details yet to come, revisit our anarchic history of Hood By Air, as the likes of Arca, Mykki Blanco, Natasha Stagg and more discuss the label’s impact and their memories of its earliest shows, and check out our HBA archive in the gallery below.
