The Crazy Range of Supreme’s Brand Collaborations

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Supreme may be exclusive, but that doesn’t mean the label keeps to itself: The streetwear brand has an impressively long history of partnering with other big names.

What started with a pretty natural collaboration — Supreme customized a few pairs of Vans back in the early ‘90s, adding its logo to the back — has grown into an almost weekly drop cycle of limited-edition, co-branded products that are snapped up in mere hours and resold for upwards of three times their original prices.

From one-off sneakers and skate decks made with blue-chip artists like Jeff Koons to longstanding partnerships with big brands like The North Face and Levis, Supreme collabs are like catnip for its army of hypebeasts, resellers, and other brand loyalists, who dutifully line up to shop each new release.

Photo: Supreme

The most interesting part? There’s almost no such thing as an “unlikely” Supreme collab. The brand has worked with just about everyone.

Brooks Brothers has made Supreme seersucker suits. Braun — yup, the calculator brand — has made a Supreme Et66 calculator. Supreme even sells plain old Hanes socks and tagless Hanes T-shirts, turned into streetwear gold with the addition of a tiny red box logo printed near the bottom front hem.

To demonstrate the wide range of partnerships, we’ve pulled together a cross-section of most iconic, interesting, memorable, and just plain weird collaborations that have been released over the brand’s 22-year history.

Marvel at a few of them below, and read more about Supreme in our feature, Reign, Supreme.

SUPREME X VANS

Photo: Supreme

Supreme’s very first — and longest-standing — sneaker partnership was launched in 1996 with three colors of Vans’ most popular skate shoe, the Old Skool. Since then, the two brands have worked together on countless collaborations, many with additional brands involved too. The most recent drop was an iridescent take on the Old Skool with fuzzy boucle uppers (pictured above). One of the wackiest was a pair of Vans V-79s made in partnership with musician, clothing designer, and visual artist Malcolm McLaren in 2009.

SUPREME X THE NORTH FACE

Photo: Supreme

A utilitarian outerwear brand might not seem like the most natural partner for an edgy streetwear label, but Supreme and the North Face have made some of the company’s most sought-after collaborations. Since launching with two, ‘90s-inspired colorways of the North Face Summit jackets in 2007, the brands have worked together on several additional capsule collections, from items as vanilla as Denali zip-up fleeces to much wilder jewel-tone leopard jackets, rolling suitcases, bandana patterned slippers and sleeping bags, and map print jackets.

SUPREME X BROOKS BROTHERS

Photo: Supreme

Why not tap the brand that invented seersucker to make an exclusive seersucker suit in a skater-friendly fit? Oh, and why not throw in a seersucker bucket hat? Supreme did just that in May 2014. The jacket and pants combo retailed for $549, while the hats rang in at a more affordable $68.

SUPREME X CHAMPION

Photo: Supreme

Long before Vetements had Selena Gomez and the Kardashian crew sporting Champion sweat suits, Supreme had hypebeasts and skaters outfitted in head-to-toe Supreme x Champion gear. This all-over logo sweatshirt was released along with a matching pair of pants in 2013 as a follow-up to a similar crewneck sweatshirt and parka made in 2012. The partnership is still a hit, if the number of products available are any evidence.

SUPREME X COMME DES GARCONS

Photo: Supreme

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment that Supreme made the leap from skate scene to fashion scene, but collaborations with avant-garde designers like Commes Des Garcons sure didn’t hurt. The first capsule collection was released in 2012, and subsequent drops (sometimes guest starring additional Supreme partners like Timberland and Vans) have included products like mixed tartan plaid button-downs, six panel hats and bucket hats, T-shirts, bomber jackets, and Comme Des Garcons’ iconic zip wallets.

SUPREME X NEIGHBORHOOD

Photo: Supreme

After opening its first Tokyo location in 1998, Supreme has produced several well-received capsule collections with Japanese brands that can be hard to find in the US, including Neighborhood, Visvim, and WTAPS. The 2006 Neighborhood pieces, including selvedge denim and the embroidered baseball jacket, above, are particularly celebrated — and rare. (A T-shirt from the collab can fetch over $1,200 on eBay.)

SUPREME X BUDWEISER

Photo: Supreme

Budweiser merch is a common sight in some of New York’s downtown haunts, where young people wear it (and drink it) to align themselves with the working class (or, ok, because it’s cheap). Supreme took that idea and ran with it for the brand’s June 2009 capsule collection with the beer maker, which featured button-downs, tank tops, and buckets hats plastered with Bud labels. (They didn’t stop at cheap beer; Supreme has partnered with cheap burgers too with a recurring White Castle® collaboration.)

SUPREME X NIKE

Photo: Supreme

According to Complex, Supreme’s longstanding partnership with Nike basically cemented sneaker culture as we know it. Since the first release in 2002 — a new take on the Air Jordan III — the two companies have gone on to produce 15 capsule collections. When the Nike x Supreme Foamposite basketball shoes pictured above dropped in spring of 2014, they literally caused riots in the streets. These sneakers retailed for $250 when they were first released; you can still buy a pair on Amazon if you’re ready to part with over a grand.

SUPREME X SCHOTT

Photo: Supreme

The historic leather purveyor Schott — a.k.a. the brand that made the leather jacket you want to steal from your dad — has recreated some classic styles for Supreme (and has been working with streetwear rival Stüssy since 2008), like the leopard-lined jacket pictured above in 2015 and an iconic Perfecto motorcycle jacket made with Undercover the same year. The two brands have also worked together on some updated styles like oversized shearling and baby blue suede coats.

SUPREME X R. CRUMB

Photo: Supreme

When they’re not blaring the red box logo, Supreme’s T-shirts often bear pop icons, film stills, and photographs from artists. One of the rarest (and coolest) is a 2007 T-shirt collab made with gritty, satirical comic artist R. Crumb, which featured three different illustrations on two T-shirts and a sweatshirt in five colors.

SUPREME X GEORGE CONDO

Photo: Supreme

The first artist to collaborate with Supreme was graffiti writer, musician, and sculptor Rammellzee, who hand-painted trucker hats and backpacks for Supreme starting in 1994. You may have also heard about the brand’s 2006 partnership with Jeff Koons (who has probably done as many collabs himself as Supreme). Both are just bullet points on a long list of artists, photographers, filmmakers, and designers — including Ryan McGuinnes, Murakami, Kaws, Takashi Murakami, Peter Saville, Marilyn Minter, Damien Hirst — who have worked with Supreme on collector items like skate decks featuring their work. One of the more interesting partnerships was a set by George Condo, pictured above, which dropped in 2010.

SUPREME X HANES

Photo: Supreme

In the ultimate high-low move, Hanes has been making packs of socks ($20) and T-shirts ($24) bearing tiny box logos for Supreme since 2009. (Because what else is a fashionable skater boi supposed to wear under his Supreme x Commes Des Garcons button-downs and Supreme x Timberland leopard boots — regular Hanes?) And yet even brand loyalists have balked at the concept of paying $24 for something you could get for less than half the price at Walmart.

SUPREME X ADAM KIMMEL

Photo: Supreme

Menswear designer (and — fun fact — father to Leelee Sobieski’s children) Adam Kimmel has run three collaborations with Supreme. The first two, unsurprisingly, were suits; the last and most interesting piece was a jumpsuit produced in fall of 2012.

SUPREME X NEIL YOUNG

Photo: Supreme

Most of Supreme’s musician collabs make total sense for the brand’s audience, from hip-hop icons like Public Enemy to pioneering hardcore punk bands like Bad Brains to counter culture figures like Lou Reed and Morrissey. But a 2015 collab with Neil Young was surprising; while the musician is pretty radical himself, he doesn’t have the same status with youth culture as the musicians mentioned above nor the perennial hipness of a Miles Davis (whose image has also appeared on Supreme gear). But his T-shirt — shot by Terry Richardson, another longtime Supreme collaborator — was a hit. (According to Hypebeast, posters promoting the drop were torn down from the streets of NYC and resold on streetwear site Grailed.)

SUPREME X TIMBERLAND

Photo: Supreme

Another well established footwear partnership, Timberland has been making shoes for Supreme since 2011. While many pairs — including the first release, a take on the Euro Hiker that came with two pairs of laces — have been relatively tame, the brands have released a few doozies together, including the leopard-accented boots shown above.

SUPREME X KERMIT THE FROG

Photo: Grailed/Snappsny

If you haven’t picked up on this yet, countless celebrities have lent their likenesses to Supreme over the years, from the musicians and artists mentioned above to figures like Kate Moss and Mike Tyson. But one of the most iconic faces to appear on a Supreme T-shirt tapped into youth and nostalgia in a totally different way: Kermit the Frog, who was photographed by Terry Richardson in 2008 for a super-hyped gallery show at Colette in Paris. (Funny enough, that wasn’t the first time a Supreme worked with a puppet. A 2005 collab with Wu Tang’s Raekwon — the brand’s first T-shirt featuring a photograph — also included a Tickle Me Elmo.)

SUPREME X A.P.C.

Photo: Supreme

The French fashion label partnered with Supreme in 2009 on a pair of jeans which featured Supreme’s favorite phrase — Fuck ‘Em! — in two places: embroidered on the butt and on a removable enamel pin. The capsule collection also included a T-shirt in two colors; the red was only sold at Supreme stores, while the black was only available at A.P.C locations.

This list barely scratches the surface — the sun never sets on a Supreme collaboration. Read more about the brand in our feature Reign, Supreme.