It’s not about the clothing, it’s about connecting.

While fashion and culture seem to go hand and hand at this point - this has not always been the case. In Bobby “Hundreds” Kim’s memoir This is Not a T Shirt, he covers the intersection of streetwear, culture, business, and brand as he recalls his journey building The Hundreds.

As a little context to those not in the streetwear world - “The Hundreds” is a streetwear brand that emerged with the likes of Stussy in California, with the motto “people over product”. While I myself never wore this brand or followed it, it was still prominent throughout my high school and continues to live on to this day, something that few streetwear brands have been able to maintain. In this book, Bobby covers his life, his come up, his short stint in law school, and his passion building something in his garage to build a community of like-minded individuals.

He covers in great detail the intricacies of streetwear and public opinion, and gives an insiders look as to why certain things are the way that they are. For instance, The Hundreds was never really in malls (at least when I grew up) because Bobby believed that it would ruin the perception of the brand, and the niche that it was targeting. Kim also warns through his story the growing pains of a business, how certain moves had certain implications, such as the recession and the supposed “death” of streetwear due to the over saturation of brands.

This book was easy to digest, but I felt that it was one dimensional in a lot of ways, in which Bobby only provides his side of the story. The memoir at times comes off self-congratulatory where he defends all the decisions that he made, even where he went wrong. While he does admit to certain things, I was left questioning some of his business decisions and his stubbornness when creating The Hundreds.

In conclusion, this book really summarizes well what streetwear has evolved into, and what it means to chase an artistic passion. While I believe that this book is less applicable now for growing a business in the era of social media and the impact it has on social culture, it rings as a good reminder as to what the process used to look like (such as getting into consignment stores, building a blog). It reminds me that fashion is not trite - even if I do not understand the underlying ethos of something. What will clothes look like in another twenty years?

Overall Rating: 5/10