The Downfall of VLONE | Threaducation

[Music] [Music] [Music] hey everyone welcome back to through education today we're going to be talking about the downfall of vlone now i know some of you are already rolling your eyes and wondering why we're even talking about vlone in the first place but this video is basically a case study of how a simple t-shirt design gained a cult following made its way to paris fashion week and fell from grace almost overnight so without further ado this is the history of vlone [Music] to go back to the very beginning we'll have to start with the founding of the asap mob of course everyone knows about the asap mob today primarily because of standout members like asap rocky and asap ferg but the collective was actually founded in 2006 by the likes of asap yams asap ills asap cam and of course asap bari whose real name is jabari shelton now to be clear that asap mob didn't necessarily begin as a rap group but it was more of a creative collective bari in particular has always been more interested in the fashion side of things and in 2011 five years after founding asap he would join fellow founding member asap cam in founding a new streetwear brand called vlone now just to be 100 transparent in case you haven't already picked up on this filon is just a play on the word alone which is something the brand references in one of its slogans every living creative dies alone which is an adaptation of a quote from the 2001 film donnie darko donnie what did roberta sparrow say to you she said that every living creature on earth does that scare you i don't want to be alone [Music] funny enough barry quickly found himself running the brand alone after asap cam had a falling out with the group the first t-shirts were much like they are today with a giant letter v on the back and while this might not seem groundbreaking it sort of became uniform for the members of the asap mob and this turned out to be perfect timing for vlone because in 2011 the same year the brand was founded the asap mob was about to change forever [Music] 2011 was a breakout year for the asap mob because this was the year that asap rocky released his hit songs peso and purple swag these songs became smash hits and solidified the asap mob in the new york music scene but perhaps more importantly they solidified the asap mob in the new york streetwear scene in these early music videos rocky can be seen wearing trendy street wear pieces from brands like black scale and he even pairs it with pieces from some slightly higher end brands like y3 rocky had always been into fashion but because of these videos everyone now saw him as something of a fashion icon at least in the new york streetwear scene this is very important because the asap mob now had a fashion minded fan base and all of them were paying attention to what rocky was wearing we was just outcasters keeping funky at home like we just like what you don't respect a hollow regular dudes escape chill dress different you know just like not only like ordinary like hollow swag so now people are looking at us like this like damn this is what all we've been doing now note that even though vlone was founded in 2011 up until this point bari was only giving vlone pieces to members and friends of the asap mob so when the asap mob exploded in popularity everyone wanted to know where these shirts were coming from and how they could get one just to give you an idea of the demand for vlone at the time here's a crazy story that rocky talked about during an interview with kerwin frost in 2014 rocky decided to film a music video for his new song riot rave and him and bari thought it would be cool if they staged a riot of kids wearing v-lone so they sent out a message basically saying meet here at this time if you want to be in the music video now they wanted the kids in the video to be wearing v-long shirts but because they were technically unreleased they didn't want them to keep them so they made you hand in your id to get a shirt and to get your id back you had to give the shirt back so a bunch of kids showed up and if you look closely at the video you'll actually see a few familiar faces in line to get velone shirts including race corrupted mind austin butts and even a young lucas about they started filming and because the music video was supposed to look like a staged riot there was a fake cop car for the kids to destroy the only problem was they didn't stop there before long things got so out of control that a small army of kids and villain shirts were smashing real cop cars taxis and even a ferrari as a result they had to shut the whole thing down and rocky even got banned from filming music videos in new york for several years after this anyways after everything was shut down rocky and bari's plan to get the shirts back went south because most of the kids wearing v-lone shirts left without their id's in the interview rocky jokes that he still has about 30 ids of kids who decided they would rather keep the shirt than get their id back and if nothing else this music video was kind of a proof of concept for vlone the demand was there and it was only a matter of time before the brand would take over streetwear bari eventually began selling velon publicly but as popular as the brand was becoming he did his part to keep the hype by making sure it stayed exclusive drops were limited pieces were usually priced anywhere from 100 to 300 and even if you wanted to pay that much they were usually sold out before you had the chance at the height of the asap mob's popularity between 2014 and 2017 just about everyone remotely interested in streetwear wanted a v-long shirt or hoodie i may or may not have been included in this category but that's beside the point the brand debuted its first full collection in 2014 and it really was an upward trajectory from there for the most part the brand's aesthetic remained the same with a few additions including the friends logo which has now become almost as ubiquitous as the original v logo during this time period it really did feel like vilon was running things in the streetwear scene it was kind of like the darker grittier less successful cousin of off-white everything was looking up for v-lone or so it seemed and in 2017 bari announced what promised to be the brand's biggest breakthrough yet a collaboration with nike in 2017 nike moved to capitalize off of vlone's height by collaborating with bari to release a vlone air force one the collaboration debuted at a pop-up shop in harlem on february 10th of 2017 and it included a black and orange low top air force one built with synthetic elephant skin leather and branded with the phrase every living creative dies alone in other words they didn't really push any boundaries with the design but it's about what you would expect for a first time collaboration regardless the collaboration was an instant success and much like vlone's t-shirts everyone in the streetwear community wanted a pair of these air force ones this was a really big step for bari and the brand because having a collaboration with nike really has the potential to make your brand's popularity skyrocket i'm not saying vlone ever would have reached this level of success but just to put it into perspective this collaboration came out in the same year that off-white's nike collab came out and we've all seen how successful that collaboration has been even just beyond commercial success this was a major personal accomplishment for bari he went from wearing nikes while coming up in harlem to debuting his very own nike shoe at a pop-up event in harlem everything had really come full circle for him and the future looked bright i'll mention that around this same time villone actually collaborated with the japanese brand fragment as well so bari was really starting to make his imprint on the fashion scene not only was this nike collaboration a major turning point for vlone but at the same time barry was starting to transition vilon into a higher quality cut and so brand and sorry to keep hitting you over the head with these off-white comparisons babari really was emulating the business model virgil used for off-white he took a simple t-shirt design built a cult following for it and then built a legitimate brand around that design in fact building off of the momentum of the nike collab bari decided to take velone to the next level in 2017 by presenting his first ever show at paris fashion week not knowing that it would also be his last [Music] now full disclosure i'm not 100 sure how barry got velone onto the paris fashion week schedule it's possible that it happened through his relationship with virgil abloh who was actually at the show but that's just a complete guess and i don't know for certain regardless he did make it onto the schedule where he presented his spring 2018 menswear collection for v-loan as you might expect the collection was basically a high-end update of a traditional vlone collection with familiar branding on leather and denim jackets as well as leather and denim pants to his credit he did mix it up in terms of proportions and layering but it wasn't anything special and the collection as a whole came off as an assortment of ideas rather than a cohesive collection he did use the show to debut some unreleased colorways of the villone air force ones but that was really the only major takeaway and i'm really not trying to rag on the show more than i need to but i feel like i should mention that it started way after it was scheduled and the audio system wasn't working so music was cutting in and out the whole time and the whole thing was kind of a mess to be fair though that's kind of on brand for vloom anyway i remember watching the show when it came out and i just remember wondering where does vilon go from here is bari going to go all in on this transition into a luxury brand or is it time for him to lean back into the brand streetwear roots well it turns out we will never get to know what could have been because this was just the beginning of the downfall [Music] shortly after his appearance at paris fashion week reports surfaced on the internet that asabari had been taken into custody by the british authorities for sexual assault obviously i don't need to go into the details and obviously the tarnishment of bari's reputation is not the great tragedy here but for the purposes of this video just know that as soon as these allegations came out the mainstream media almost immediately turned on bari even other members of the asap mob including ferg and rocky made it clear that they didn't approve of barry's actions even though he would go on to remain a part of the group after the reports came out barry took to instagram to put out a statement which you can see here as you can see he kind of avoids admitting any fault and the way he's apologizing it's almost as if he expects the whole thing to blow over of course this is not what would happen because almost as soon as the news broke nike confirmed that they would be severing all ties with bari meaning that the new v-lone air force ones he debuted at paris fashion week would never actually make it onto the market speaking of which this situation basically derailed bari's plans to break into the luxury fashion industry and he has not been invited back to paris fashion week since nearly two years after the incident in 2019 bari ended up pleading guilty and was fined but was not given any jail time even though this subtle thing's in court velone has not really been the same ever since at least in terms of its public perception and i'm not saying this would be a good thing but maybe we would still be getting velo and fashion shows and maybe we would have more velone air force ones maybe people wouldn't roll their eyes whenever you mention bari's name all that said this really was the downfall of vilon but it certainly was not the end of the loan despite everything that has happened with v alone i'm almost certain that if you ask bari he'll tell you that the brand is stronger today than it ever has been and in a sense he's not wrong even after all of the bad press vlone has exploded in commercial popularity but it's definitely lost its exclusivity and most of its original cult following this is largely because bari has moved fuelen's business model to focus almost exclusively on collaborations some recent collaborations have included nav pop smoke juice world nba young boy and the weekend as you can tell the strategy has basically been collaborating with major artists to release film branded merchandise to bundle in with their album sales i'll be the first to say most of these collabs have been really uninspired and they sort of come across as a money grab but hey props to bari because this strategy has been extremely successful in fact i read one report that the nba young boy vlone collaboration alone brought in as much as 3 million dollars in just 3 days so all of these things considered i'm pretty sure barry has no regrets about the direction the brand has gone in even though i'm personally not a fan of all of these collaborations that velone has been doing it makes a lot more sense than seeing vilon on the runway as a member of the asap mob bari has always been deeply rooted in the music industry so it appears like he's found a nice niche for himself by becoming the go-to brand for album merchandise collaborations obviously he'll never get to have partnerships with major brands like nike but as long as there are major artists willing to co-sign him i think he'll be quite alright [Music] the story of vlone is ultimately the story of a brand that burned too bright and burnt out too quickly it started as an organic streetwear brand just as gritty as its harlem roots but it was thrusted into the spotlight with the rise of the asap mob the transition to become a luxury label came too quickly in my opinion but the real downfall of velum came when bari lost the respect of his audience in the general public yes vlone is still commercially successful but hopefully this serves as a reminder that commercial success doesn't always tell the whole story anyways that is all i wanted to talk about in terms of the history of the alone i know a lot of you aren't fans of the brand but like i said at the beginning of the video hopefully this has served as an interesting case study of how a simple t-shirt design gained a cult following made its way to paris fashion week and fell from grace almost overnight as always thank you for watching and i'll see you next time you

Channel: Threaducation

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Keywords: Asap bari, asap mob, asap rocky, asap ferg, A$AP Bari, A$AP Mob, A$AP Rocky, A$AP Ferg, Luka Sabbat, Rayscorruptedmind, the history of vlone, history of vlone, what is vlone, vlone, vlone shirt, vlone asap rocky, vlone asap bari, vlone nike, how vlone became vlone, how awge became awge, is vlone still good, is vlone still cool, how much is vlone, asap bari no jumper, carti, playboi carti, playboi carti wlr, New York fashion, streetwear, streetwear brand

Id: R1fL_mouFxI

Length: 16min 54sec (1014 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 27 2020