The Chanel of downtown streetwear.
—Business of Fashion
When James Jebbia arrived in New York from London in 1983 he had, in his own words, “no training in anything and no loot.” He applied for a job at a Soho boutique called Parachute and, lucky for us, he was hired. Jebbia spent five years at the store learning about retail, but like most of us blessed with the entrepreneurial spirit, he eventually started to feel stuck and wanted to work for himself. So he began his own venture, a flea market on Wooster Street, with his then-girlfriend, Maryann.
Around the same time, Jebbia began going back to London regularly. It was on these trips that he was inspired by the “cool and unusual things for young people” at smaller stores like Duffer of St. George and Bond. He recognized that no one was offering that type of thing in New York, so in 1989 he decided to open a shop, Union, featuring English brands that were hard to get in the U.S. He also carried an upstart brand from the West Coast, Stussy, that exploded in popularity and changed everything for Union. When Union got a shipment of Stussy it would sell out instantly, so Union basically transformed into almost a full-on Stussy shop. Through this success, Jebbia befriended the brand’s founder, Shawn Stussy, and they decided to open a Stussy-branded store on Prince Street in 1991. The store saw its own share of success, but soon after its opening, Shawn became disillusioned with the direction of his brand, resigned, and decided to sell his shares in the company.
With the future of Stussy unclear, James Jebbia decided to break out on his own once again. He found a vacant storefront with cheap rent on Lafayette Street—then a neglected part of town— and decided to open a store selling what he referred to as “skater stuff.” He called the new store Supreme.
Why did he open a skate store? Well, for years he’d been going to fashion industry trade shows like A.S.R. and Magic, and the only thing that excited him there was the skate stuff, which he described as “powerful and raw.” He didn’t know of any good skate shops left in the city, so he thought that could be a good direction. Jebbia was also personally into the skater graphic decks, tees, and sweats, so he decided to make that the center of his merchandising. What he didn’t know at the time was that the stuff he found so personally appealing would become his brand.
While Jebbia may not have written a business plan or had grand aspirations, he did have a very clear vision for what he wanted his store to be: “It needed to be an authentic skate shop that hardcore skaters would appreciate, but just as importantly a shop that people who didn’t skate would be intrigued by. And that’s pretty much how it went down.” Jebbia knew what he didn’t know, and in this case he knew he wasn’t a skater, so his first and most important hire was Gio Estevez. It was Gio who hired most of the team at Supreme, and he brought in people he knew and trusted: his fellow skaters.
Gio’s team legitimized Supreme, and from the first day the store was swarmed by the New York skate community, generating immediate and genuine authenticity. The store’s layout helped, with an open central space allowing skaters to enter on their boards. Sales started off slow, with Supreme acting more as a hang-out for skaters than a retail shop. Had Jebbia been shortsighted, he might have killed that vibe, but instead he embraced it because he knew having the skater community would lead to everyone else becom- ing customers as well. He was humble and smart enough to let his team and core group of skaters take center stage. This fostered the brand’s organic growth and enabled him to stay behind the scenes and focus on what he was best at: curating great product (or, as he says, finding “good stuff to sell”).
