What Is BLESS & Why Is Supreme Collaborating With It?
Venerable skate brand Supreme has created a collaboration with BLESS, the equally venerable Berlin-based art collective-cum-fashion brand. Makes you wonder: how many of Supreme's fans were previously aware of BLESS?
Doesn't matter. That Supreme is tapping BLESS for a surprise collab speaks more to Supreme's newfound good taste than anything else. And any opportunity to spread that artistic curiosity to Supreme shoppers is a net win — I have to ponder whether or not this partnership was conceived by Tremaine Emory before his departure?
Supreme x BLESS was confirmed on November 7 but Supreme leakers had the details days in advance. I believed 'em: Supreme leakers are more accurate than political pollsters. Plus, why else would otherwise hype-hungry leak pages be talking about intentionally hype-free BLESS?
Supreme's BLESS collab is a treat. It's a thoughtful hybridization of both brands' POVs, informing BLESS' trademark shapes with Supreme's unique brand of chest-beating kitsch.
Deliciously textural intarsia puffers, playful charging cables, hybrid trousers — it's a brilliant meeting of the minds, with plenty of winks meant for the real Bless heads.
I'm a BLESS head, of sorts. I've written in the past about Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag's nearly thirty-year-old ultrahyphenate imprint but haven't really granted BLESS the lengthy love it deserves.
Maybe the coolest thing about BLESS is that it isn't any one thing. It's a clothing company, an interior design company, a maker of fine art, a book publisher, solution-deviser, trailblazer, innovator.
There's nothing else like BLESS.
Having proven its fashion cred many, many years ago — Heiss and Kaag's collaborative resume includes insiders like Martin Margiela, Cristaseya's Cristina Casini, and colette founder Sarah Andelman — BLESS has no one to impress but itself.
Its output is aseasonal and, to put it mildly, atypical.
At any point during the year, BLESS might exhibit its wares via international galleries, host guests at Berlin's BLESS Home, plan a daytrip for weary buyers during Paris Fashion Week, operate a mobile sauna in a retrofitted Mercedes, or release two-dozen or so "products" that range from the elegant tapestry blankets that it's been producing for decades to the signature Overjogging jeans, hybrid half-n-half pants that stitch Nike sweatpants to Levi's jeans. (Supreme is offering its own take on the latter, BTW)
BLESS produces work in numbered editions, some high-concept and some direct.
2012's BLESS Nº46 "Contemporary Remediation," for instance, ditched the conventional production cycle entirely, instead encouraging clients to send BLESS a "wish list" of dream products exclusive to each retailer.
Remember that most brands debut a set collection each season that buyers choose from — BLESS' scheme was an intentional, whimsical logistics nightmare.
2022's BLESS Nº74 "Always Stress With BLESS," meanwhile, reunited over 200 BLESS friends, family, previous employees, and interns for a reunion and group walk in Berlin.
The get-together was photographed and compiled into a book that was released to coincide with another group walk through Japan.
BLESS has rarely ever, if ever, strayed into commercialism.
Its ardent following — like Supreme, BLESS is ravenously adored in Japan —has allowed it the freedom to explore pure creativity with a naivety and earnestness uncommon for anything that's been in or around the fashion biz for this length of time.
Supreme offers BLESS its biggest shot at fame to date, though nothing BLESS does is for anything as vapid as attention.
I'm instantly reminded of last season's surprisingly expansive Supreme x Bernadette Corporation collab for more than a few reasons (like BC being bookmates with BLESS).
Though it was hardly a hit with Supreme's clout-craving fanbase, the BC team-up called back to Supreme's glory days, when the massively popular streetwear inceptor would drop seasonal merch with an undersung artist or brand simply because it could.
The story is also there with BLESS. And so is the clothing.
