Streetwear Grading System: Red Tops

M o n d a y , M a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 0 9

Every streetwear brand tells a story, some talk about the gritty life of New York streets, others tell the story of southern California's skate culture, but rarely (ok, not so rarely) do streetwear brands get so caught up in making marginally humorous flips of logos that their purpose is telling the story of mind-numbing logo flips.

Enter Red Tops.




If I see this in a shop (right...) and the screen print looks like this, they should give you some kind of award. I don't know if they give awards for streetwear (I certainly wouldn't--I guess if they did they'd have to hand them out to every brand, like the remedial classes in high school), but DAMN even I would LOVE to wear photo clear images on my shirt! Who cares if they're totally irrelevant to 99.9% of people out there.

Lack of creativity: 8
Gaudiness: 8
Cost effectiveness: 6
Reappropriation: 6
Overall streetwear scale grade: 7/10




Woah, now this is what streetwear is all about! Don't you feel it coursing through your veins right now? Ya know, the rush of adrenaline that you're only able to feel if you have both a misguided sense of thuggery and a serene willingness to attach said thuggery to your paypal account balance?

Lack of creativity: 9
Gaudiness: 8
Cost effectiveness: 8
Reappropriation: 10
Overall streetwear scale grade: 8.75/10




The one thing I gotta say about Red Tops is they really take me back to streetwear's heyday of '06, where anybody would buy ANYTHING (not to be confused with aNYthing). Yep, rest in piss police, fake thugs, street art (that's kinda weird...but hey), swagger jackers (I hate those TOO!), snitches, wack brands, whea--wack brands? YOU HATE WACK BRANDS?!? SELF LOATHING WILL NOT GET YOU BOUTIQUE ACCOUNTS IN '09! Try Hot Topic...

Lack of creativity: 8.5
Gaudiness: 7
Cost effectiveness: 9
Reappropriation: 8.5
Overall streetwear scale grade: 8.25/10






Yeah, I know what you're thinking: Western Promises might be it, it's got everything you could want in a tee. Reckless reappropriation of logos? Check. Cost effective? At two colors, it's about as effective as it can get. Lack of creativity? Yup. Gaudy? Yeah. I can't even make a joke. It's like we're playing basketball and I'm a freshman and Red Tops is a 12th grader, but they're 12th grade Kobe Bryant and I'm ninth grade Sean Marks. This sucks.

Lack of creativity: 9
Gaudiness: 8.5
Cost effectiveness: 9.5
Reappropriation: 10
Overall streetwear scale grade: 9.25/10

--Ira