Hypebeasts Are Day Trading Streetwear, and These 3 Brands Turn the Biggest Profit

What if you could skip learning everything there is to know about stocks, waiting years for your assets to appreciate, and instead just invest in your favorite streetwear brands? Imagine getting a 2x return on investment every time a new drop sells out—assuming you can get your hands on the goods in the first place.

No one would even bat an eye if the shelves were emptied in under 10 minutes, by the way. Blink, and you’ll miss the whole release. 

Welcome to streetwear’s resale market, where hypebeasts are the new stock market junkies. They find the drops that are going to bring the most hype, buy them up before they sell out, and resell them at a profit. And while traditional investors might think I’m being hyperbolic about the profit potential, I think we can all agree with Jay-Z that numbers don’t lie.

Compute this: the $15 billion fashion resale market is expected to triple to $47 billion by 2025. Which side of history would you rather be on?

StockX, one of the biggest marketplaces for sneaker and streetwear resellers, just released their 2021 culture index. Let’s take a deeper look at the 3 streetwear brands that garnered the biggest resale profit margins on StockX in 2020, with average price premiums of up to 75%.
 

For a company whose brand is defined by not liking other people all that much (or at least the mainstream), Anti Social Social Club sure does have a lot of fans. ASSC was the most profitable brand to resell last year, with their items fetching a 75% average price premium above retail. But what is up with the mania for ASSC T-shirts, hoodies, license plate frames, ashtrays—and dare I mention—sex toys? 

When you first lay eyes on an ASSC item, you can’t help but feel puzzled and amused at the same damn time. Puzzled by the fact that there’s a social club for all the lurkers out there. And amused by the dark humor emblazoned on Anti Social Social Club items, like “GIVE ME HAPPINESS GIVE ME PAIN,” “MANIC DEPRESSIVE SADIST MASOCHIST”, “GET WEIRD” and “NEVER AGAIN NEVER YOU”.  

There was a time when no one would proudly wear these brooding, embarrassing and sometimes even offensive slogans. But that time has long passed, proven by the fact that ASSC’s random drops routinely sell out in less than 4 minutes. 

Their most profitable item from SS20, the Anti Social Social Club Kkoch Tee, is currently selling at a 115% premium. Somewhere out there, there’s probably some snot-nosed 12 year old with zero investing knowledge who made an absolute killing on this. Why mow an entire lawn for $6 when you can 2x your money fast with an initial investment of just $38?

If you’re more interested in a 10x ROI though, the lowest ask on a BAPE x Anti Social Social Club 1st Camo Pullover Hoodie is currently $4,000. It initially retailed for $328, so the seller is looking at a potential ROI of 1,119%. Owning a piece like that is sure to trigger the admiration (and jealousy) of hypebeasts worldwide.

You can’t talk about Streetwear without Supreme coming up during the conversation. Supreme is one of streetwear’s biggest success stories, starting as a small New York skate shop and growing into a global billion-dollar brand. I’d wager to say a large majority of hypebeasts got their start as Supremeheads.

In terms of total trades though, Supreme was the no. 1 brand on StockX this past year, with items selling at an average price premium of 67%.

More so than any other streetwear brand, Supreme dominates the resale market, with their items currently taking all top 10 slots on StockX for highest price premiums. Additionally, Supreme had not one, but two of the top 5 best-selling collab pieces of last year: with the Supreme x North Face in first place, and the Supreme x Yohji Yamamoto coming in at no. 5. 

But what is it about Supreme that makes their items so valuable? Well, variety is part of Supreme’s appeal. Hypebeasts are always looking for “what’s new”, and Supreme does not fail to deliver. Sure, they’ll drop T-shirts, jackets, sneakers and other items you can actually rock. But next to those, Supreme keeps the culture on its toes by releasing items like clay bricks, porcelain figurines, crowbars and nunchucks. 

And no matter how over-the-top and impractical these items are, they perform well on the resale market. The Supreme brick is currently selling at a 566% premium. Don’t even get me started on Supreme tees. Their 20th Anniversary Box Logo Tee last sold for $1,292 on StockX, which is 40X above retail.

If you’re itching to invest in a high-priced Supreme item that’s bound to appreciate, like their skate deck drop featuring collaborations with Kaws, Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Marilyn Minter, and George Condo, we’ve got you.

Public, the "stock market for culture," has two of the skate deck drops, and you can start investing on their app for just $10. Every week, Otis finds high-quality, verifiable cultural assets—think iconic sneakers and street art with high profit potential—and breaks them into shares that you can buy and sell on their app 24/7.

Ever since AstroWorld dropped, Travis Scott has been on a straight winning streak. His resume boasts an impressive roster of collaborations, like:

• A $10 million per year Nike deal with sneakers that sell out in hours.
• A Fortnite virtual concert experience that grossed over $20 million dollars in merch sales.

His most recent and unexpected win was a menu item and streetwear collaboration with McDonald’s. In terms of pure hype, the Travis Scott x McDonald’s collaboration was the biggest happening in the streetwear scene this past year. And with over 12,000 units resold, the Travis Scott x McDonald’s Crew red T-shirt has also become the best-selling single colorway on StockX. 

If we’re just talking premiums though, the Travis Scott x McDonald's Cactus Sauce III T-shirt takes the cake (or I should say Chicken McNugget). Originally retailing for just $48, this piece is currently reselling at a 202% price premium. Does that leave you with a sour taste in your mouth for missing out, or is it just me? 

The truth is that flipping streetwear for a profit isn’t as simple as just saving up some cash. You either have to stand in line for hours at a retail store, or fight a bunch of bots online just to check out your shopping cart.

If you're not down to fight a bunch of teenagers for the latest drop, Rares is a social investing app that makes it easy for anyone to trade rare and iconic sneakers. Say goodbye to all the headaches of flipping sneakers, which include: 

• Competing against humans and bots to buy the shoe. 
• Placing it in storage and keeping it clean until you find a buyer.
• Dealing with shipping and logistics after you get a sale. 

Instead, Rares turns sneakers into assets that you can buy shares in. Just like stocks, sneakers on the platform get listed through Initial Public Offerings (IPO). You can buy these shares when they're available, and cash in on the potential profit by selling them when they go up in value.

Imagine if you had invested in Apple in 2011. Your investment would have nearly 10x’d since then. Well, Rares is offering the next best thing: A limited edition 1990s Apple sneaker, currently valued at $18K. You’d be hard pressed to find another piece of Apple merchandise this rare that’s publicly available for investment. So get in on that hype train before it leaves the station.