Kate Moss for Supreme’s 10th Anniversary.
A thumbnail of a scan of a T-shirt. An eMail, a phone call and the consequences.
A big part of Beinghunted used to be the “Quick Links” section. Long before Twitter, I set up this feed of messages–only a few lines of text with a gallery pop-up and URL–to be able to shoot out quick bits of info or simply to tease bigger stories. One such quick link in early 2004 was a tiny thumbnail of a bad scan of a T-shirt from Supreme for their spring/summer collection featuring a black and white photograph of Kate Moss.
The files–most of the Supreme catalogue for that particular season–had passed through several nodes before ending up in my inbox and I wasn’t 100% sure what to do with them right away. I believe I hesitated for a few days before I decided not to post any of them. Except for that one thumbnail which I assumed was too small to be recognized by anyone, anyway.
However, similar to the digital route this file took to reach me, it also quickly found its way back to Supreme in New York. Three things happened afterwards: 1) I received a very polite eMail asking me to take the picture offline. 2) I took the picture offline. 3) I received a phone call from someone preceding my source for those files by 2-3 instances within the data stream. This person, who happened to be a friend of mine, too, seemed somewhat stressed out.
Besides the fact that those files–and the Kate Moss design, one of the highlights for Supreme’s 10th anniversary, in particular–should not have been passed on, it was more the presentation (or lack thereof) that caused aggravation. As a retailer myself I know all too well the feeling of disappointment when either a project or product surfaces weeks if not months before a set date. Pictures are mostly unprofessional, information is based on speculation rather than facts, the story is more or less spoilt.
As we all know, that little teaser did not affect the impact of this T-shirt design when it went on sale. It did, however, affect my relationship with Supreme. Shortly after I produced the first official Supreme online feature on Beinghunted. And a few years later when we started carrying Supreme at Firmament I received their PDF catalogue with this note: “This catalogue is for buyers and business owners only. No part of this catalogue should be posted online at any time.”
After more than nine years, it should be OK to re-post that original JPG file from the Beinghunted Quick Links section but also a few more of the scans from that catalogue. Even more so as it contains other highlights such as the Rammellzee backpacks, as well as the Andrei Molodkin Box Logo T-shirt and decks.
Check out the Beinghunted Archive section for the Supreme Beinghunted Features published over the years.
Supreme New York
After the 10th Anniversary Kate Moss T-shirt, Supreme released another design with the model for its 2012 spring/summer collection, as well as a special version of the original for Japan with OriginalFake in 2008.