Supreme’s New Era Takes Shape in Seoul

The shop was designed by the architect Adam Brinkworth, and is one of the airiest of Supreme’s sixteen locations, with two gargantuan Ojas speaker rigs hanging from the ceilings. “There’s no room for a huge skate bowl in this particular spot,” said Brinkworth, wistfully. A supersized version of Supreme’s infamous “cash paperweight,” a Fall-Winter 2017 accessory that was never released to the public, sits in the center of the room on a rug designed by the artist Nate Lowman, whose bullet-hole works adorn several of the store’s white walls. Great art is an under-appreciated feature of many Supreme shops. In a zine made for the opening, Lowman describes hanging his work in Supreme as “exposure on a much grander scale than I would ever get even at a good museum.”

Brinkworth has worked with the brand for over a decade, but noted that he happened to visit the Lafayette store on the day it opened in 1994. “It’s unashamedly a shop,” Brinkworth said, pointing to the orderly racks of button-downs and sweaters. “It’s not trying to be a huge marketing exercise, but actually a shop where the product is laid out and cared for. There’s no losing sight of that.”

As is tradition, employees passed out free special-edition box logo T-shirts, while the likes of Jason Dill and Kunichi Nomura caught up with Supreme skate team young guns Seven Strong and Troy Gipson. “It’s not about me, it’s about we,” exclaimed Weirdo Dave, a collage artist whose work adorns the walls of ten Supreme stores. Unlike your typical billion-dollar-brand opening, there were no influencers or celebs in the room. Instead, Supreme flew in employees and collaborators from New York, London, Milan, and Tokyo who could show the new Seoul crew the ropes. “Having this energy in town and having everyone integrated, that’s super special, and I think one of the key ingredients to what Supreme does,” said Jordan. “Maintaining that as we expand globally is super important. We do it every chance we get.”