I feel like kids don’t come to school late after a doctors appointment with McDonalds (bought by their parents) anymore. Whole school used to be jealous.
Ash Hudson, younger brother of iconic guitarist Slash of Guns N' Roses, was a pioneer in hip hop fashion / streetwear. In 1989, at age 16, he created the brand CONART that became very popular with the biggest names in rap and was pretty much the precursor to Supreme.
Ash Hudson began selling graffiti-designed T-shirts in Los Angeles outside schools and at sidewalk booths. After getting the idea to reproduce designs rather than sell only original art he founded Conart, a brand named for "Convict" and "Art."
Conart is considered one of first brands to use graffiti artists as designers and is noted as “the original maker of the graffiti street-style T-shirt". Conart featured artists like Mear One and Chaz Bojórquez not only as design talent for the clothing, but also to support guerrilla marketing. In a 2008 interview Ash explained “the t-shirt and the city walls was like a blank canvas and I was featuring [Conart] with all the hype artists—PJay, Express, Mear— under that umbrella. They could bust-out a Conart mural and it was more in your face than a regular billboard and other corporate advertising like that��.
Conart gained popularity in the hip-hop scene, with artists like Cypress Hill, Snoop Dogg, and N.W.A. wearing its apparel, and was covered in magazines such as Rap Pages and The Source. KRS-One also gave a shout out to the brand in the lyrics of 'Out for Fame' his ode to graffiti as an art form. The brand defined the style of 1990s subcultures, including skaters and taggers, and was celebrated at a 2014 retrospective event in Los Angeles.