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Every so often, a piece of clothing arrives like a lunar eclipse: We all gather around to stare as it blacks out our ability to focus on anything else. Remember those Balmain Moto jeans? Or Saint Laurent’s Teddy varsity jacket? Or Givenchy’s Rottweiler T-shirts? (Oh, to be young and so enchanted by the phrase “elevated streetwear”!) These items were so cool, so gotta-have-it, that celebrities instructed their stylists to pick them up by any means necessary, even as they surely knew their peers were having the exact same conversation with their stylists.
Trends come and go, but It pieces are forever. And in 2020, that item is the just-released $2,010 floral Louis Vuitton hoodie that appeared in Virgil Abloh’s Spring-Summer 2020 show last summer. The turquoise hoodie with one off-kilter pink sleeve boasts more elaborate floral bouquets than your local corner store. It will definitely trigger your pollen allergy. It challenges the notion that florals for spring aren’t groundbreaking.
And celebrities—athletes, specifically—are noticing. In just the past few weeks, the hoodie has been worn by Odell Beckham Jr., now-retired Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia, unofficial Super Bowl MVP runner-up Damien Williams, and a lone remaining Waiters Island resident…..Dion Waiters. Beckham and Sabathia even wore the hoodie to the same Super Bowl afterparty—quelle horreur!
The hoodie comes from the same Vuitton collection that boasts giant beekeeper hats, Midsommar-style accessories blooming with flowers, breezy pastel-colored jacket-and-trouser sets, and even fashion kites printed with the Louis Vuitton monogram. All the pieces were part of the collection’s larger “gardening” theme. The hoodie’s popularity might come from the way it boils down the collection’s theme into a single item, but doesn’t require the likes of Beckham and Sabathia to lug a kite around the afterparty circuit. A simpler answer swings back to famous folks’ love of all things Abloh, especially something as easy-wearing as a floral hoodie.
Streetwear might be dead, or on its deathbed, according to Abloh. However, the fact that this piece can claim more famous athletes than Drake’s rolodex is proof that weaning guys off of high-fashion hoodies and getting them into oversized pastel suits is still a work in progress.
