Çoul Style Street Fashion Meetup: The Streetwear Edition

Raleigh, NC – Streetwear has become what dress and formal wear used to be. Whether to call it appropriation or not is up to you but the plain and simple of it is, it is has crossed ethnic and cultural barriers in mass.

Once upon a day, brands like Champion, Reebok, and any non-popular brand was a no-no to wear. You would be picked on for wearing Pro-Keds and items you would have purchased from places like Walmart or the local discount store. Now, this kind of shopping and flaunting is a big part of the streetwear consumer culture. Another part includes buying, selling and authenticating coveted streetwear items. I go more in-depth about this on my blog post about a recent Sneaker Kickback event. Click here to get see that article http://www.coulstyle.com/recap-photos-from-the-2019-kickback-sneaker-expo/

Since streetwear is so popular we took to the auto body shop ruins across from the Police station in downtown Raleigh on June 23rd to flaunt and photograph local streetwear themed outfits. Set to a background of dirt and forsaken carports, many of the fits feature elements that can be seen in pop hip hop culture. Heels, combat-like boots, body cons, have all become a part of what was once a culture born of sneakers, jumpsuits, sneakers, denim, t-shirts and more sneakers.

The 80s really taught us what streetwear was. Hip Hop and Rap icons became celebrity influencers in luxury designer labels at that time. This is also the age where we see the beginning of street fashion. Meaning, the culture of fashion in all genres was being defined by what everyday people were wearing and how they were wearing it versus what famous designers were showing on the runway.

This idea is what makes street fashion so relatable, hard to pin down, and very much celebrated. We don’t think about it but a good streetwear outfit is much harder to execute than what we can do with terms like chic, formal, and casual. However, we can see masterful ideas, every day, in what people wear when it comes to how they wear their athletic garments in combination with other things.

Check out the gallery below to see the streetwear looks local attendees from Raleigh, Durham, Elizabeth City, Greensboro, Rocky Mount, and other areas came up with.