Streetwear is a few decades old at this point, but it’s still a staple of modern fashion and growing in popularity every day. But in a world awash with new drops every day, choosing where to start with wearing streetwear can be a challenge. Below, we’ve made a list of ideas to help anyone start getting into this accessible style.
Tip #1: Know Your Essentials
Streetwear fashion is about eschewing traditional formal fashion and introducing comfort into your wardrobe. For that reason, the best way to enter into the world of streetwear is first to identify your clothing essentials. These are your starter pieces, which can be freely integrated with your daily wardrobe to create the start of a streetwear outfit.
When it comes to tops, this includes tees, tanks, anoraks, and hoodies. When it comes to bottoms, any sort of specified athletic short will do. For both, sweats, tracksuits, and any sort of matching active or athletic apparel will work. Accessories like caps, beanies, bandanas, glasses, or watches can all help elevate your outfit to the next level.
Tip #2: Embrace Color
Color palette matters no matter what you wear. But when it comes to streetwear’s dress code, especially, you have a wide range of choices available to create your outfit. It’s easy to go with bright pastels to make an extreme statement or remain equally awe-inspiring by sticking to subtle monochrome. Take, for instance, the Loop Terry Standard Sweatshort, which is available in 13 different colors--it provides all the comfort and style you need in your streetwear pant.
Black, grey, and natural stylings make it easy to embrace classic sweatshirt colors, with darker colors available in mountain blue, hunter green, or ultraviolet. For those who want to flaunt their style in immediately different patterns, mint, fuschia, and wildflower pink provide bright colors for a distinct silhouette.
Whether you want to cultivate understated gear or shout your style from the rooftops, it’s easy to find clothing that matches your ideal aesthetics.
Tip #3: Don’t Overdo the Logos
There’s nothing wrong with having a few pieces in your wardrobe with a logo splashed around the chest. After all, if you have a brand you like, you may want to show your appreciation. Wearing an outfit where each outfit has a logo bolder than the design itself, though, can make you look like a walking billboard, especially if each piece is from a different company.
An easy way to avoid this look is to check how a given designer incorporates logos into their clothing. Tonal embroidery is a style where the brand is stitched into an article using similarly colored fabric to the base garment, adding a bit of subtlety to the process. Additionally, smaller appliques draw less attention than full logos.
We’re not saying to disuse clothing with logos: A piece with a prominent design can easily be used as a key asset to build your outfit around. However, combining articles with subtle logos and ones where they are at the forefront can create a more balanced appearance.
Tip #4: Look For Quality
One of the benefits of streetwear compared to formalwear is that you can wear it almost anywhere with a casual setting. This is all the more reason to expect more from your streetwear.
Luxury sportswear will often be made from higher quality materials, leading to greater comfort and greater attention to detail in ancillary design choices.
Most of Daniel Patrick’s items are highly personalized, another benefit of quality streetwear. We insist on hand making our garments to maintain quality regardless of what it costs on our end, rather than put on an impersonal, mass-produced product. Our home base of Los Angeles is important to us, and for that reason, we take many of our design cues from the environment of California.
Streetwear held to a high standard does far more than simply offer comfier, more durable clothes. It also puts you in the heart of a narrative that’s forged with heart and built to last.
Tip #5: Know the Fit
There’s plenty of different ways to style your own apparel between slim fit, regular fit, and oversized fashion. Streetwear prioritizes the latter two in a bid for clothes that appear casually loose but never baggy.
For one example of how to achieve a loose look without being shapeless, check out the Surplus Hoodie. Our take on the classic grey hoodie uses heavyweight fleece to give your sportswear a luxe feel, comfortable enough to wear on its own, and thick enough to layer up for more intense weather patterns. The hoodie is meant to fit oversized, but an adjustable bungee cord at the waist helps you partially transform the way it fits for a sizing that’s personal to you.
If you prefer a more traditional fit, you can avoid an oversized fit and go more regular by going down a size with the Surplus Hoodie or any other apparel by Daniel Patrick that’s specified to have an oversized fit.
Tip #6: Invest in Shoes
Streetwear culture and sneakerhead culture meet when it comes to an appreciation of fine footwear. The sneakerhead movement originated in the ’70s and ’80s and was closely associated with some of the best athletes and sportswear brands of the day. Even before our inception as a company, we’ve always been interested in fine sportswear. For that reason, we’re proud to regularly collaborate with athletes like James Harden and classic athletic wear brands like Adidas to fuse performance and fashion.
For a good sneaker, we highly recommend the Velcro Panel Runner. The shoe harkens back to some traditional design elements while presenting our unique aesthetics by contrasting a mesh upper with leather paneling and 3m reflective lines to bridge the gap between the two. Nylon tape detailing on the front and heel and the Daniel Patrick name printed on one of the side leather panels offers a subtle addition to the footwear, proving that every square inch matters when it comes to design. Three different colorings of the Velcro Panel Runner exist, depending on how you want to match your outfits.
For a brightly colored variation, the Sunset features black leather highlighted by wildflower pink mesh on the upper and tongue and cobalt blue mesh along the shoe’s collar. The black and grey variant features black leather and mesh, with a grey side panel to highlight the Daniel Patrick name in black for a monochrome look. For a boldly clean, stark white appearance, the White + Black Velcro Panel Runner has an all-white appearance save for a small black leather side panel where the logo appears in, naturally, white.
If you’d rather pair your gear with a boot, we have to recommend the Chelsea Roamer, which presents itself as a fusion of both the traditional Chelsea Boot and our ever-popular High Top Roamer. Nylon tape detailing up the front ends in a loop adds to the already distinctive appearance created by the calf suede upper and elastic ankle. The black version of the boot features an all-black appearance that the red Chelsea Roamer boldly defies with red calf suede and a natural elastic whose color reflects back to the sole of the boot.
Whether you go with sneakers, boots, or something else, there’s plenty of ways to style your outfit with the right pair of shoes.
Tip #7: Pair Your Gear
You don’t have to stick with just one brand, but diving deep into the line of a few you enjoy has its benefits: Designers often create with synergy in mind. For instance, Daniel Patrick’s basics collection has the same fundamental theme: Take classic closet staples, and upgrade them both in material and aesthetic design to make them competitive streetwear pieces. Because these items are made together, being able to match them is a consideration from the ground up.
Going back to tip #3, pairing your clothes also prevents you from being covered in a bunch of disparate logos, giving you a more consistent look overall.
Tip #8: Prepare with Patterns and Graphics
One essential part of many streetwear collections is the ability to integrate distinctive patterns and graphics in a bid to add a distinctive appearance to your overall outfit. One notable line to include graphics and patterns with a high-concept theme is Daniel Patrick’s moving mountains collection, which takes inspiration from our home locale of Los Angeles in order to create a highly stylized series of gear.
Daniel Patrick offers a wide variety of graphic tees and sweats, including the Desert Mountain Bungee Sweatshirt. This addition to the Moving Mountains line features a desert mountain print with the moon overhead and the Daniel Patrick logo embroidered below. The graphic as a whole is distressed to give the whole piece a vintage style. The heavyweight fleece making up the sweatshop, which is milled and dyed locally in LA, makes it a comfortable piece to wear on its own or layered up.
Then there is the Venice Trunk. These relaxed fit trunks feature an elastic waist with a rounded drawcord and 3m piping on the sides to upgrade the classic trunk appearance. Lightweight nylon, which makes for a wide range of movement and quick-drying functionality, makes it so that the trunk is ideal for beach faring and street use alike.
The Venice Trunks, in addition to traditional solid-colored patterns, are also available in two sets of patterns with two colorations each. The first, a checkered pattern available in champaign and black, is designed to evoke the classic two-toned appearance of traditional football club gear. The second, available in white acid and red acid, invokes our moving mountains collection in that it showcases a cloudy pattern meant to mimic chemtrails and smog greys.
Whether you prefer vintage, eye-catching graphics or uniquely made clothing patterns, streetwear offers plenty of options for both.
Tip #9: Layer Up
Streetwear is all about the cut of the fabric and how it drapes on a person. An essential part of the drape of clothes is how they layer together. For one example, take the Roaming Cloak. A shawl collar and back center seam give it a unique appearance while the heavyweight fleece material makes it ideal for layering, whether over a plain tee or a heavier item like a sweatshirt.
Layering also has the added benefit of easily allowing you to swap between layers throughout the course of a day, whether you want to change your visual aesthetics or simply adjust for changing temperatures. Either way, by playing with layers you open yourself up to a wide world of new fashion choices.
Tip #10: Get a Statement Piece
When you look at a given brand's streetwear line, you’ll notice a mix of bold pieces and high-quality, understated designs. This comes from a basic principle: If everything you wear makes a bid for being the center of your outfit, the eye won’t know where to look and the whole look will become difficult to parse. Choosing one key item to base your outfit around, be it a graphic shirt, a boldly colored pair of pants, or a good pair of shoes, helps you be more aware of the impression your outfit gives and makes you look more put-together overall.
An exception to this rule: If your outfit has multiple pieces which are designed to match as a whole, such as with like-colored sweats or track suits, then your combined top and bottom layers will operate as a single, overall piece. This still means you’ll still need to choose the right shoes, socks, and so on with it, but it will give you a more uniform appearance.
Tip #11: Prioritize Comfort
Streetwear, on a fundamental level, is notable for the way it merges form, function, and fashion. After all, there’s no reason to sacrifice your own comfort for the way you look. A study of what streetwear consumers want found that two elements elevated streetwear in many people's minds: Coolness and comfort. Natural fibers like cotton are well-lauded for the breathability and comfort they add, and synthetic materials like polyester and nylon are known for their light weight as well as their ability to wick moisture.
Historically most traditional high-fashion items have prioritized form over function. Streetwear, as its name implies, originated on the streets with skater and surf culture. Since gaining in popularity, top fashion houses have followed in this trend which came about to be exclusive and individualized, while also being broadly accessible.
By enjoying comfort in your streetwear, not only are you rewarding yourself with luxe gear as great to wear around the house as it is when going out, but you are also fighting back against the notion that people have to suffer for fashion.
Tip #12 Think About Fabric
What do you want from your streetwear? Do you want something purely for lounging about? Do you want something to help you perform at your best whether at the gym or on the field? Or do you want something in between?
Streetwear takes many cues from classic sportswear, and as such there’s a lot of overlap between the two. Cottons are cozy and especially good for loungewear, layered gear, or for wearing during contact sports. Synthetics like nylon, however, respond to sweat in a way that makes them ideal for long-distance running, or any other sort of athletics. It’s easy to choose your gear based on your own needs for style and athleticism.
Tip #13 Look for Collaborations
We live in the age of collaboration, and that’s not a bad thing at all. A collaboration allows two like-minded groups to come together and create something that neither one of them could have made on their own, and frequently features artists, designers, musicians, athletes, and just about anyone else with a bit of creativity and likeminded passion. Currently, Daniel Patrick is running one with Adidas, bringing our fashion sense and high standards to basketball apparel.
Beyond the names, there’s a much bigger reason to look for gear that’s the product of collaboration: Exclusivity. While the resulting products won’t necessarily cost much more than the base line of either brand, because such creative endeavors are limited-time the apparel that comes from one will most likely be low to medium batch and feature more radical stylings. This can be seen in design choices such as the bright yellows that make up a great deal of the DP Adidas Basketball Collection.
Last Tip: Dress Like Yourself
People dress differently. If they didn’t, the world of fashion wouldn’t be nearly as varied as it is today. If loose clothes don’t gel with how you dress, opt for a regular fit when choosing what size to wear. Similarly, if graphic clothes don’t work with you no matter what you’ve tried, there’s no reason you can’t stick with something more conservative.
Fundamentally the way you dress should express how you want to look, not the way someone else wants you to look. Above we’ve listed a wide variety of ways to start wearing streetwear, but that doesn’t mean you have to follow each one to the letter all the time. Keeping in mind the guiding principles we have while leaving the personal aesthetics to your own preferences is a great way to wear streetwear.
Sources:
Streetwear Consumers Just Want Cool and Comfortable Products I Sourcing Journals
The Collab: Collaboration Is Key For The Fashion Industry In The Age Of Sharing I Perino Yarns