Stüssy Founder Shawn Stussy Unretired His Other Genius Clothing Brand
Shawn Stussy and his S/DOUBLE brand are abruptly back in business. But don't expect Stüssy 2.
S/DOUBLE's new chapter was quietly revealed by hand-written mural posted outside skate and surf company Globe's Australian HQ in early July. According to the note, Stussy is developing S/DOUBLE's new chapter with Globe's sibling founders, Peter and Stephen Hill.
S/DOUBLE was Stussy's most personal clothing brand since Stüssy but it's since been mostly forgotten as new brands pile up, burying everything that came before.
Clearly, though, Stussy doesn't care. S/DOUBLE was for the heads back then and will be for the heads once again.
"After I retired, the tides have changed... and we now find ourselves perched to have another go at it," Stussy said in the S/DOUBLE manifesto. "I am engaged and ready to move the needle once again."
Highsnobiety has reached out to Globe for comment.
Quick history: Stussy co-founded Stüssy in 1984 but hasn't been affiliated with the streetwear brand bearing his name since 1996.
Since then, he's bounced around with various low-key one-offs — see Stussy's limited edition designs for clean water charity Waves for Water — but S/DOUBLE was Stussy's most public stab at a clothing brand.
Stussy debuted S/DOUBLE in 2010 with a tight capsule of post-skate-flavored gear that foretold current-day upstarts like Noah, Aimé Leon Dore and, yes, new-school Stüssy, which found its way back to this sort of cool nearly a decade after S/DOUBLE was founded.
S/DOUBLE's vibe became reminiscent of Stüssy Livin' General Store, Stüssy Japan's beachy casual line, but with a bit more menswear inclination.
Alongside very of-the-era graphic tees — "My other ride is your mom" — Stussy's S/DOUBLE dished urbane items that included bomber-inspired mackinaw coats, collared work shirts, five-pocket Japanese jeans, leather belts and Vibram-soled work boots, nearly all made in America or Japan.
S/DOUBLE's Japanese connection went deep.
I suspect Japanese megaretailer BEAMS was behind a lot of this.
It was one of the biggest S/DOUBLE stockists, for instnace, and fostered S/DOUBLE collaborations with BEAMS proper and some of its partner brands.
There were S/DOUBLE x Vans shoes, S/DOUBLE x Naluto swim trunks and even S/DOUBLE jewelry crafted by silversmith Bill Wall Leather, embossed with the interlocking S/DOUBLE monogram sketched by Shawn Stussy himself.
S/DOUBLE's Japanese foundations were so strong that Stussy opened a Tokyo flagship store, the S/DOUBLE Surfshop, only a few years after premiering the S/DOUBLE studio in Santa Barbara circa 2011.
Remember this was at the cutting-edge of the 2011 #menswear boom. Stussy was, as usual, ahead of the curve. Maybe too far ahead of the curve: forward-thinking genius or not, S/DOUBLE quietly ceased operations in 2016, with its final seasonal lookbook — so understated you might not even think it was designed by the guy behind Stüssy — issued in 2014.
Most of Shawn Stussy's other professional work has been behind the scenes, with the major exception being a terrific Dior collaboration in 2020.
But Stussy has hinted at the return of S/DOUBLE for several years, so the brand's 2024 revival has been in the works for a minute, to be sure.
He registered a new S/DOUBLE trademark in 2020, for instance, and incidentally flexed an S/DOUBLE T-shirt on Instagram back in February.
The comments would have you believe that Stussy had merely pulled an old S/DOUBLE shirt from his archives but perhaps it was actually a sign of things to come.
There is no specificities about what exactly Stussy and Globe are up to with S/DOUBLE but Stussy himself has been dropping some tantalizing hints, including a Land Rover partnership and an open invitation to collaborate with HOKA on the Tor Summit sneaker (though that might just be a game-recognize-game moment).
Oddly, though, he didn't post anything about the manifesto published outside of Globe.
But Stussy did set the mood for S/DOUBLE's new era by quoting Muddy Waters' "Young Fashioned Ways" in June 29.
"A young horse is fast / But an old horse knows what's going on," sings Waters. "A young horse may win the race / But an old horse stays out so long."
