If something is supreme, it usually is the best, whether it’s gas, the high court or a Motown singer. It even works if you slap the label on T-shirts and wind up with a collection worth $2 million.
James Bogart collected every T-shirt made by Supreme, the skate store that turned into a trendy megabrand, for six years and is about to be rewarded as if he was collecting fine art or rare coins.
“Bogart’s Box Logo Collection,” containing each of Supreme’s 253 single retail-released T-shirts, will be sold for a gaudy seven-figure total in a private sale during an online auction by Christie’s in New York. Supreme’s simple red rectangle logo and Bogart’s obsession to create the first Supreme shirt collection will make him rich.
“By the time 2015 rolled around, I had developed a strong interest in the brand, picking up the releases I liked as they dropped,” Bogart said on the collection’s web site. “I’ve still got many of those initial purchases in my collection today.
“From that point on, my interest grew into an obsession, and started adding to my collection as often as I could, always looking for the best condition examples I could find. … A lot of people don’t think about the non-stop weeks, months, and even years of research and work that it can take to find just one tee.”
Supreme became famous for its weekly product drops that created a brand cult and set industry release trends. With lines forming regularly at only 12 stores worldwide, social media created a buzz for the scarcely available, highly priced products.
The brand logo, a red rectangle with “Supreme” inside it, was called the most powerful fashion logo by Lyst in 2018, and the company is selling to Vans owner VP Corp. for $2.1 billion. It boomed so much that a separate auction item, a shirt collaboration with Japanese brand WTAPS, is available on Grailed for $12,800 because about 30 were printed.
And all this time, Redbox was only charging a few bucks for movie rentals. It missed its “red box” market.
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