Revisiting Aimé Leon Dore's Own Vision of Greek Style Cafe Society on Mulberry Street
/Photographer Andrew Jacobs [IG] turned his lens to the Aimé Leon Dore [IG], Summer Uniform 2023 lookbook as the brand continues to elevate itself with a wow remodel at its New York City flagship store at 224 Mulberry St.
OMG! Speaking of Cafe Society! This newly-done store is fabulous, including the Aimé Leon Dore and Porsche collaboration — an ultra-elegant 356, built by Porsche built between 1948 to 1965.
We last wrote about Aimé Leon Dore with a focus on the rise of varsity-inspired elegance in the Black community and beyond. Of course, my favs were there — Pharrell and his Humanrace skincare brand, Emily Bode and activists in Colombia, SC dressed in old-school Black Church elegance like it was 1965.
HighSnobiety calls it Club Culture. We like Cafe Society because that concept has an existing history already based on a multiracial exchange of status, money and artistic talent. We saw it out in full force Tuesday night with the unveiling of the Pharrell Williams debut for Louis Vuitton Mens.
What it’s not is Supreme, sold in 2020 to VF in a $2.1b deal. New-York based streetwear giant Supreme generated revenues of $523.1 million for the year ended March 2023, down from $561.5 million in the same period the year before, according to parent company VF.
I can’t find any better video than this Porsche & Aimé Leon Dore 2021 film to capture the evolving mood of this now annual collab between Porsche and the brand founded in 2014 by Teddy Santis.
The major talent is also now the creative director for New Balance’s Made in USA brand. Products flying this flag must have a domestic value of 70 percent or more.
What Aimé Leon Dore's marketing and clothes by Teddy Santis are channelling is regular, hardworking people who are successful now. They aren’t nepo babies or silver-spoon kids with trust funds. Rather, they are the American story of success — the often-quoted American dream.
Yes, there is mythology to the facts of this assertion, but at the end of the Louis Vuitton Mens’ show Tuesday night, Pharrell Williams sang the same message, mouthing it to the camera at the end: “If you want it, you can have it!”