Why Karmaloop Matters: Industry Veterans Reflect on the Site That Introduced a Generation to Streetwear

The power that a tweet can hold. On Jan. 5, music executive Damien “Ddot Omen” Washington, sent a message into the world that threw the streetwear community into a frenzy. “Y’all was out here buying fits off KARMALOOP, I ain’t forget.”

Plenty of people quickly came to the defense of Karmaloop and the threads they procured from the e-commerce site throughout the 2000s and early 2010s. In case you don’t know, Karmaloop was founded in 1999 by Greg Selkoe and became a go-to online store for some of the biggest names in streetwear like 10 Deep, Diamond Supply Co., Crooks and Castles, and HUF in the decade that followed. If you didn’t live in close proximity to streetwear’s hotbeds like Los Angeles and New York City, or know the right message boards to peruse, Karmaloop was the best way to tap in with these brands. It was curating streetwear and bringing it to the masses before the subculture was as mainstream as it is today. While streetwear purists viewed the e-commerce site as inauthentic, Karmaloop played a huge role in cultivating an entire generation’s love for fashion.

“I think it started everyone's career almost. It started our love for clothing and making clothing. My intro into wanting to dress better was that website,” says Jacob Keller, a prominent YouTuber at the time known for his Karmaloop hauls that currently operates his own label, Bare Knuckles. “I just feel like it kickstarted everyone. I know people that said they watched my videos in 2014 and now they have jobs at big fashion houses. That era was huge.”

The downfall of Karmaloop was an unfortunate one. In March 2015, the brand filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Rumors of Damon Dash and Kanye West buying Karmaloop to save it from its tailspin never materialized. Two months later, Comvest Capital and CapX Partners bought Karmaloop for just $13 million. By June 2015, Selkoe was removed as Karmaloop CEO. The company was sold to Shiekh Shoes in March 2016. It still operates it to this day, believe it or not. The bankruptcy left many brands and partners of the site unpaid. Karmaloop owed over $19 million—as much as $313,695 to brands like 10 Deep. Despite the money left on the table, designers like 10 Deep founder Scott Sasso aren’t aren’t totally soured on that period of their careers.

“I don't like to think of myself as a business person. I'm a culture and people person. That's the shit I care about,” says Sasso. “I wish I had those profits today, but at the time 10 Deep was making more money than I had ever imagined that it could.”

This latest instance isn’t the first time that we’ve seen the internet recall Karmaloop and argue about its positive or negative impact on streetwear, and it won’t be the last, but seeing all of the chatter got us feeling a bit nostalgic for the time period. Things like Goodwood chains and Flud watches may not have aged gracefully, but that doesn’t mean that Karmaloop didn’t introduce thousands of people to plenty of the most important streetwear brands of all time during its heyday. We decided to talk to prominent figures from that era including Bobby Hundreds, Scott Sasso, and the very man who founded the site Greg Selkoe, to reflect on its impact within streetwear, for better or worse.

Who: Founder of Karmaloop

This weekend, Karmaloop nostalgia was at an all-time high. A lot of people were rallying around their love for the site. How did that make you feel?
It felt great. Obviously I loved creating Karmaloop and building it. We were in the center of culture and it's awesome to hear people reminisce on how they spent their first paycheck on Karmaloop. How they met a bunch of people in London through our rep program. When I go places or to business meetings, it's not uncommon for me to hear people immediately tell me how much they loved Karmaloop and how important it was for their youth. How we put them on to Kid Cudi or how Karmaloop TV was ahead of its time.

It's funny. I just re-read that piece in Complex [from 2015.] I said I wish Karmaloop TV didn't happen, but to clarify, I was really talking about the fact that we tried to do it with big corporate media. We should have just stuck to YouTube, which is how we originally did it. Even what I'm doing now with XSET, it's a continuation of so many things that we did at Karmaloop. In terms of how we think about culture merging with fashion and streetwear. Today, gaming is a much bigger piece of the puzzle within the world of culture.

But yes, I feel great about it. I've gotten a lot of DMs this weekend and a lot of people have hit me up. I can't believe it has been 24 years now.

Karmaloop had an incredible 15-year run when it was in your control. How important do you think it was for streetwear?
Prior to Karmaloop, if you went into Gucci, Louis Vuitton, or Chanel, it was all suits, brown shoes, and button-down shirts you tucked in. High-end streetwear wasn't there. What brands like 10 Deep, Diamond Supply, Billionaire Boys Club, LRG and Crooks & Castles were doing has now translated [to the luxury] market and laid the foundation for [designers like] Virgil Abloh [or brands like] Fear of God. So much of that influence still lives on today.

We didn't create streetwear but we put it on the map because if you didn't live in New York, Los Angeles, or even Boston where we were based, you couldn't access streetwear before the internet. Those brands became iconic. Pharrell and I did a lot of stuff together, beyond just him being a creative director for Karmaloop TV. He has only continued to evolve and now he's the Men’s Creative Director at Louis Vuitton, a brand that would have never even made streetwear back when we were first starting. From Kanye, to Diplo, to Steve Aoki, there's so many people who sold their stuff through us or just fucked with us.

We did a lot more than just sell clothing. We were building a lifestyle, a culture, a community. We had the Casbah which hosted all these emerging brands and so many so many big industry cats today who got their start by working for me.

Do you feel like those Karmaloop brands are set to make a comeback?
Look at Crooks & Castles, his design [style is found] everywhere in streetwear. Triple 5 Soul re-launched and just did a collaboration with Pleasures. All these brands are heritage labels now.

Fashion goes in these 10-year cycles. I left Karmaloop in 2015 and I looked at a chart from the day I left a year later. Their traffic shrunk by 80 percent because it just wasn't Karmaloop without me there. But when you look back, that shit was crazy. I took ASAP Rocky and Ferg out for pizza when they were in high school because they used to wear Black Scale they bought off Karmaloop. Shomi Patwary, who headed Karmaloop TV's YouTube, he met ASAP Mob early and we directed those early videos for Ferg.

There's a lot of good stories and a lot of good times. It was painful when Karmaloop got taken away from me from a big private equity group (Shiekh Shoes). I told them the whole time, without the soul, flavor, or culture, you're taking something that's not going to have anything for you. That's basically what happened.

But you know, someone brought LRG recently and it's making a comeback. So I think many of those brands will show up again in different forms and the culture lives on. I mean, even Karmaloop still exists, it's just not what it was.

We were a part of the culture. When people said they were throwing parties at like Art Basel, we'd support it by sending clothes, gift certificates or even sponsoring it. There was so much more to Karmaloop than just selling clothes. We had 250,000 kids who basically worked for us in our rep program. They hustled on college campuses, organized parties, and even painted crazy big graffiti murals. People always say we should do a Karmaloop documentary. We'll see.

So what have you been up to since?
After Karmaloop, I ran FaZe Clan for a while, which is a big gaming collective that was just crushing it but didn't really have a culture piece to it or any merch. Myself and the former head men's buyer at Karmaloop, Will Eddins, came in and created FaZe collaborations with brands like Champion, Be@rbricks, and all this stuff that never really happened before in the gaming space. 

After two-and-a-half years there, I bounced because I wasn't messing with the culture there. We did a lot of good stuff but things like diversity and other positive aspects found at Karmaloop were not able to be replicated at FaZe. I left in 2020, sold my shares and everything. This was long before they went public [on the stock market] and also became embroiled in controversy. I really needed to do something that reflected my own personal values.

We launched XSET in 2020, which is a gaming lifestyle collective. We create merchandise. We've done collaborations with brands like Mastermind and Pleasures. We've worked with celebs like Ozuna and Quavo. Nigel Sylvester, Ezekiel Elliott, and T Grizzley are investors. We're just building off the spirit of Karmaloop and planning to release a of content this year with [gaming] creators like Cash Nasty and Clix.

How do you think streetwear has changed since?
I feel there was more art, authenticity, and realness. It's almost like people made money by accident. I wasn't trying to maximize every dollar I made. I got up everyday, loved what I did, and had this worldwide community I fucked with. We all helped each other out and made it work. I think some of that has been removed from fashion today. And now, mainstream brands do streetwear. You can buy it at H&M or any high fashion brand. 

There was a movement going on with brands, music, art, entertainment, even politics during Karmaloop’s time. Obama was president and there was a lot of excitement and enthusiasm about change happening in the country. Obviously, it's a different time now. A lot of people are struggling and there's less unity even when it comes down to seeing a group of people come together to do something cool and creative.

So that's what I'm trying to do with XSET. To build that next generation of creators and innovators. Ultimately, I think it will be bigger than Karmaloop. I was still in my parents’ basement during the first three years of Karmaloop. So I'm in that phase right now with my new company, but we're about to set the world on fire. 

Who: Founder of 10 Deep

How did you first hear about Karmaloop?
I think they started approaching us around 2006 to 2008. And we didn't get onboard until maybe 2009 to 2011. It was a few years of them coming to us and we were trying to hold them off. It was me and my team's feeling that some of the other brands there weren't brands that we necessarily wanted to be next to. And we could see that some of what they were doing was bringing streetwear to the mainstream. It didn't seem like that's where we wanted to be then. Then, in 2009 when the financial crisis was hitting and it was the first sort of streetwear collapse, the end of the all-over print, the business was changing and I knew that we needed to batten down the hatches. We decided to sell to them. With Karmaloop’s help, we were able to hold our sales at a level that was sustainable.

I also perceived that some of Karmaloop’s strategy, the discount codes and sales and all that stuff was really good for Karmaloop, for driving volume, but I felt like it was bad for the culture of streetwear. I thought it hurt the stores, who at the time were really important. They were the whole of the culture. A lot of the stores at the time were throwing parties in their communities and really the office water coolers of the culture in a way. And you have to remember this is before we had Instagram. People weren't spending the whole day scrolling through feeds on their phones. So, the stores were really, really important. But you know, we joined [Karmaloop] because it felt like it was important for the business. Some of our contemporaries that were important to us were also on there by then, like Crooks and Castles, Mishka, and HUF.

So, you were almost begrudgingly selling on Karmaloop in the beginning?
It wasn't even begrudgingly. I wasn't into it until it was useful to me and our brand. As we did business with them, as I came to understand what their role was in spreading the word of the culture, I appreciated what they did. I don't hate Karmaloop. I respect it. I liked a lot of the people that work there. I'm not mad. It’s not just whack or good. I think it's a mix of those things. I think that they ended up being important for where streetwear is today, both the good and bad aspects. They spread the word, but maybe they also played a role in turning the culture into this thing where all the brands seem to be about maximum capitalism. It's complicated. But for someone to say that Karmaloop was not important or was trash is ridiculous.

Why do you think Karmaloop was so important to that era of streetwear?
I think that Karmaloop ended up being really important in spreading and broadening the culture of streetwear, which I don't know if it still exists or not, but it feels like the culture that was bubbling up then was certainly propelled forward a lot by Karmaloop. I think that the whole streetwear market ended up benefiting, even the Supremes who weren’t selling on Karmaloop, because it told more people and made “streetwear” available to more people. It expanded the market in massive ways. So, I think that what they did is important in that regard.

How did Karmaloop help 10 Deep?
It helped, but it also made things harder for us. It made it so that we had to do more to keep our cool, which we may or may not have been able to keep up with at the time. But I think it helped spread the message of the brand. It helped put eyes on the brand. It helped grow the significance of the brand.

Did the way things ended change your perspective at all?
I don't like to think of myself as a business person. I'm a culture and people person. That's the shit I care about. I don't even remember how much they stuck us for, almost $400,000 or something. I wish I had those profits today, but at the time 10 Deep was making more money than I had ever imagined that it could. That would have been the biggest money making year for the brand had their bankruptcy not happened. It was a bummer. But I positioned the company in such a way that we weren't totally dependent on that. To put it into perspective, that 400 grand represented a low single-digit percentage of the business. I did care, but it didn’t hurt me.

Why do you think so many people are still so nostalgic about Karmaloop and that era?
That’s what they grew up on. They’re young people and they're out there discovering something that probably becomes part of their identity. I still listen to my favorite album that I got for my eighth grade graduation dance. And anytime anybody has something negative to say about the Jungle Brothers, I kind of tell them that they're an idiot, whether or not the album is great. I don't know how it applies to my life as an adult now, but I have a nostalgia for it because it's part of the formation of me building my own identity. And I think that that goes for people in the Karmaloop era. People weren't shopping on Karmaloop because they knew about cooler stores to go to. They were shopping on Karmaloop because it was a place that they went to find something that they thought was cool.

I'm amazed when I go to shops. If there's a sales associate there between 25 and 40 and I talk to them about 10 Deep, they will talk to me about buying it on Karmaloop. It's kind of ubiquitous. There might have been some corny stuff on there and their sales tactics may have been not as cool as some people would like, but it's a starting point for a whole generation of fashion and style enthusiasts. And it's partially responsible for the explosion and the popularity of fashion in general today. People's tastes supposedly have evolved, but when I go look around for stuff, half the shit that I look at looks like streetwear from 2010 to me. A lot of those high fashion houses look like stuff I was doing in 2011 and 2012. 

Who: Co-Founder of The Hundreds

Do you remember how you first heard about Karmaloop?
So, in the early 2000s the magazines that we would be featured in were street culture, music, or skate oriented. In the more music-oriented publications, if you saw a Karmaloop ad, it would be advertising rave clothing. It was very thematically rave and electronic culture. So, when we started The Hundreds, our generation was so intent on purity and being very true to culture. That meant being averse to selling out. It wasn't about fashion. It was very much the secret handshake subculture. So, when a store would ask to stock your brand, the first answer was no. But if you entertained the idea of selling to the store, what other brands am I gonna be merchandised alongside? Are they brands that stand for what my definition of streetwear is? Do I co-sign them? Will they co-sign me? Are they friends of mine? Early on, there were not many online multi-brand stores. Selling online was pretty rare.

Karmaloop started to stock streetwear brands, but our understanding has been that it was a rave site, so we didn’t think it was authentic to our brand or streetwear. And so that's initially why we refrained from selling to Karmaloop. As Karmaloop got bigger and bigger, we had decided to remain loyal to a competitor called Digital Gravel. It wasn't making as much money, but they did seem a bit more authentic to the definition of streetwear that we had. We were loyal to them and they were loyal to us. We became the best selling brand on their store over various seasons.

Even though you didn't sell on there, what do you think Karmaloop’s importance was to that era of streetwear?
When skateboarding first started to break through into the mainstream, there was a big part of me that felt like how I felt when punk bands would go to mainstream radio. This is mine. I don't wanna share this with the rest of the world. They sold out. Streetwear also very much felt like that in the 2000s. There was a resistance from a certain demographic of streetwear collectors and personalities saying, “We don't want to go mainstream. We don't want this thing to get so big that it becomes a trend.”

What Karmaloop helped to bridge was they had curated many authentic, credible streetwear brands. They were able to translate it to a much broader audience. They were introducing more young people around the country and around the world to what streetwear was and is. Without that happening, streetwear wouldn't have been able to elevate and transcend into different arenas, for better or for worse. That's so subjective. It’s a pointless conversation. But in hindsight, what did it do for streetwear? It helped it gain credibility in the mainstream capacity. It's given so many people jobs. It entertained so many people. It introduced people to their lifelong friends. It's a net positive at the end of it all. And sure, something may have been lost with that. But I think in the end, the benefit that stores like Karmaloop had far outweighed the negatives.

Sure, there's a romance and a charm to staying really true to our principles and not selling our clothing to more people, but the secret was too good to keep. Karmaloop was the one who capitalized on it. They had the infrastructure to scale it properly. They were the ones who knew, from a business and capitalist and infrastructure point of view, how to get the message out there. Thank God they did it. That was their role in streetwear history.

Did you ever come close to putting The Hundreds on the site?
At a certain point, we felt like why are we the only ones not doing this and cashing that check. We start feeling kind of dumb like, “Here I am, alone with my principles again.” I’m sure there were seasons where we heavily considered, but at the end of the day we were committed. But I always admired what Karmaloop had done.

Why do you think so many people have that nostalgia connected to Karmaloop?
I don't wanna sound like I'm talking shit. I don't know if it's specifically just about Karmaloop just like it's not specifically about The Hundreds. They’re just symbolic of that era of streetwear. I think people just have a really warm nostalgia for that type of streetwear. They want it to feel underground, independent, and raw again. I think they're missing the honesty of what that kind of streetwear was.

Back then, people wore streetwear because nobody wore it. You wanted to intentionally look kind of weird and different when everyone is wearing Gap or Old Navy. Now, people wear streetwear because everyone wears it. It's two different doors to get into the same room. Streetwear has been pinched and pulled in so many different directions, so many different definitions. Why do we do it? It's clearly not about just money anymore because there's not as much money as there used to be. We're not in the headlines as much as we used to be. We're not front row at Paris Fashion Week the way that we used to be. Virgil's gone. A lot of these creative directors and heads of fashion houses have been removed. So, what is it that we're doing here? There's a reckoning happening and I think it's pretty fascinating to watch. I don't know where it goes from here.

Do you think there is an opportunity in the near future for this era of streetwear to become the new trend, for people to go digging for old Hundreds T-shirts or 10 Deep jackets?
We actually have been seeing this happen. It started over the pandemic for us. We started a program called The Hundreds Greatest Hits because we are watching hundreds of thousands of dollars of vintage The Hundreds sell on eBay. So, we're sourcing more actively, authenticating product for people. We're being a little bit more intentional about this by setting up our new eBay page. I personally have been doing this on my own. I just bought a vintage Alife shirt because I just really missed what that brand meant to me. I'm seeking out a lot of the early to mid 2000s streetwear T-shirts, hats, and hoodies. I know I'm not alone. We even have a Greatest Hits rack of vintage product that we source in the back of our store. We see a real future in this. I think it's gonna be the next wave of vintage.

Who: Founder of Married to the Mob

Why do you think everyone is so nostalgic about Karmaloop?
I'm nostalgic about that time every day. My daughter constantly finds and sends over old Married to The Mob Tumblr photos. I think people are just nostalgic for that time because the world wasn't on fire and it was pre-Instagram. Everything is weird now. Karmaloop was very influential and it's funny because it was either Digital Gravel or Karmaloop. I could be wrong, but I feel like they might have had streetwear like beef at the time because you didn't sell on both. You sold on one or the other. I think Karmaloop was much bigger and Greg and Dina Selkoe were these mythological figures in the streetwear world.

He was the most high-energy person and she was this stunning, Angelina Jolie lookalike, who was also a lawyer. They were just so interesting and made a lot of people a lot of money because they moved a lot of product.

How did you first connect with them?
They contacted me around the summer of 2007 and they came to my loft to have a meeting with me. I remember because my mom was there and she's a therapist, who was helping me with my newborn daughter at the time. My mom was psychoanalyzing them after they left because Greg had a big personality and my mom was fascinated by him. I became very close with them after that and worked with them for a very long time.

Why go into business with them? 
I mean, they were interested and I thought it was a good business decision. I wanted to take Mob to a bigger stage. I wasn't really selling on many other websites. I was in boutiques but e-commerce wasn't a big thing at the time. Frankly, it didn't even exist except on such a small level. It's so weird to think about it like that because Mob today is only e-commerce. But at that time, I was originally against e-commerce because it felt like this weird thing that was just starting. Like what is this? I wanted to be careful about my brand and where it was being sold. But I just had a baby, so I knew I had to take the brand up a notch with more distribution. At the time, they had other cool brands. I mean, I was probably judging the other brands a little, because I thought I was cooler than them. But Mob was so cool, so I knew that going on Karmaloop would give them some cred also. It was all a very mutually beneficial relationship.

Why was Karmaloop so important for this specific era of streetwear?
Because they were the ones doing it the biggest and selling the most clothing. But they also cared about the brands. They weren't like investors or old garmentos trying to rip-off young designers. They really cared and it was a whole community. That's the other thing. I met a lot of people through the Karmaloop family that I'm still friends with now. It was a whole gang of us that met during that time. Like Greg Weinstein, [Karmaloop TV's former marketing director] is someone I'm still friends with. They were powerful, influential, and going on their website was a big deal for my brand. It helped me generate more income, more sales, but it was really important because it was a community.

E-commerce is the standard now. Do you see e-commerce platforms that feel derivative of Karmaloop or is it incomparable?
Oh no, I don't think there's anything like it. I mean, of course, stores like Alife and Opening Ceremony had a community. I'm sure that there's many other brands and companies that are like communities, but Karmaloop was just different. It was a very unique, niche moment, in time. It's not just a website and it wasn't just a company. It was a moment in time and they should really do a documentary about it. Where the hell are Greg and Dina now? Please holler at me!  It was just a great time.

Who: Marketing Director of LRG

How did you first connect with Karmaloop?
This was like 2007, when LRG was ascending. Back then, it was IRL. He came to our booth at the MAGIC Convention in Las Vegas and he was there with Holland Smith [Karmaloop's former head of merchandising] E-commerce was obviously newer at that time. LRG didn't even have a site until 2008 or 2009. We just had a splash page.

It's interesting to hear everyone say that streetwear didn't have a place for e-commerce the way we do now, with retailers like SSENSE or Bodega, until Karmaloop stepped in.
There wasn't. The industry was built off wholesale orders where brands had to pre-book spots at trade shows. That was the business model. If your brand didn't get orders at trade shows, you wouldn't get it. You might get the scraps, but that's why brands were pre-booking trade shows nine months in advance. I mean, we were on another site called Digital Gravel. That was technically the first e-commerce site we were on but Karmaloop took it to the next level. That's because it was like a virtual trade show, brand boom, and Instagram all in one. You went to Karmaloop to see the trends, what's new, and see all the different brands of the moment.

What was the difference between Karmaloop and Digital Gravel?
Digital Gravel was like, early 2000s. It was more analog and not as aesthetically pleasing as Karmaloop was. It was an independent company and e-commerce was very new at that time. Digital Gravel wasn't as smooth and its business model wasn't as clean and tight as Karmaloop. So they eventually fizzled out and Karmaloop came right in. They hit it on all cylinders with a great team and just crushed it.

Why was Karmaloop so important for streetwear in the late 2000s and early 2010s?
That was the spot and there wasn't really anyone doing it like them. They were kind of the only game in town on that level. An e-commerce store that had a huge amount of new brands and to their credit they really had a finger on the pulse. They picked the right brands and knew what their audience wanted. They were ordering almost everything from LRG. They truly had a vast amount of our line on their site. Back then, people still went to their local store to buy LRG. But unlike Macy's or a local skate shop, which had limited stock, Karmaloop let you see our entire line online. They played an instrumental role in establishing our online presence and e-commerce footprint before we even made social media accounts.

A lot of people seem to see Karmaloop as a community more than a store.
Oh definitely. Look at that rep program they had. Dennis Todisco made a name for himself, by doing that rep program. That's how he started and he made a lane for himself doing that. Karmaloop gave a lot of people opportunities like that. They also had these little sub-sites, like Plndr and Kasbah, that showed a lot of love to up and coming brands. They put a spotlight on people who would have otherwise been just one and done.

What brands did you discover on Karmaloop?
Karmaloop sold a lot of woman-owned streetwear brands like Married to the Mob or Brown Babies. I really didn't know those brands were coming up until I saw them on Karmaloop. Streetwear is male-dominated so it was eye-opening at the time to see that women had their own thing going on in streetwear.

Who: Founder of Circulate Worldwide

Do you remember how you first heard about Karmaloop?
Honestly, I don't remember. It might have just been through the homies or the forums, to be honest with you. 

Why do you think Karmaloop was so important to that era of streetwear?
I think it just introduced us to stuff and gave us access to it. I think a lot of people were discovering brands through Karmaloop. I think it's of the utmost importance.

Back in the day, when we were younger, you didn't have all this bread to blow on clothes. Places like Karmaloop were not only giving us good deals on stuff, they were also putting us on to stuff. I think this new wave of people wearing fashion stuff are starting to forget the golden age of all this shit and where it stems from.

You got to experience the Fairfax era firsthand, but still were shopping on Karmaloop back then?
I've always been a nerd for streetwear. Even before Fairfax, I started off as a forum kid. I got introduced to forums through NikeTalk and then that kind of stemmed into n-sb.org and Hypebeast forums. You could talk to your favorite streetwear owners on a given day. Being a kid and being able to directly talk to Bobby Hundreds or Nick Diamond was always super pivotal.

But things like Karmaloop, I didn't grow up rich or anything like that. I was always looking for deals. Even when I went to Fairfax, I would hit the sales. So, Karmaloop giving out codes to use was always good for a good deal. I think that's kind of how it came into play [for me] even though I had direct access to all those brands.

What were your favorite brands from back or brands you may have been put onto through Karmaloop?
When I think of 10 Deep, I think of Karmaloop. I think everyone has that sentiment. It kind of bums me out how 10 Deep isn't around anymore. The shit they were doing was crazy. Like the print placement. Now that I make my own clothes and know how all that stuff works, it was actually a good deal because they were doing full cut and sew, all-over print hoodies, and print placements that aren't normal. And it was done really well. So, I'm sure production on that stuff wasn't easy or cheap. And he, and, you know, back then things weren't as accessible. You had to hit minimums and it's just like the price kind of makes sense now. But yeah, they were doing some stuff that was ahead of their time. When you think of Karmaloop, it goes hand in hand with 10 Deep. Crooks and Castles is another one.

What do you think is the biggest difference between streetwear at that time and streetwear now?
Nowadays, everything is so big. No one really has to research anything anymore. It's right in your face and it creates popularity and trends easier. Everyone's kind of wearing the same thing. All you have to do is go on your Instagram and scroll your feed for a couple of posts and somebody's wearing Denim Tears and you're like, “What's that?” You just click the photo and maybe they tagged them. It goes straight to them, as opposed to back in the day where I had to dig around the forums to find out what's what.

When I was younger and I loved Nike SB, I really immersed myself in that shit. I can tell you every Nike SB that came out, the year that it came out, what the colorway means, who designed it, all kinds of shit like that. But I think today everything is so surface level and readily available. People don't do the research. They just go off what they see other people doing. We kind of lost a sense of individuality.

Do you feel like brands from the Karmaloop era of streetwear could become trendy in the marketplace again?
Honestly, I don't know, man. But I definitely know that people see old The Hundreds stuff and they get this nostalgic feeling. But I don't know if people are gonna be collecting that stuff. I think you have to really be somewhat of a streetwear nerd to want to archive that stuff or grab it to wear. It depends on who the person is, but I don't think it's gonna be a big thing. And to be honest, I don't think a lot of the older streetwear graphics aged well. I think they were just random graphics and shit that people don't care for. They just wanted it because it was hot back then. Maybe people will seek out things like a Rogue Status gun T-shirt, but they're not looking for a random Hundreds graphic from way back. They might remember it, but they don't care enough to collect that stuff.

Who: Former YouTuber (AlwaysFreshApparel), Founder of Bare Knuckles

Do you remember how you first heard about Karmaloop?
I think it might have started with LRG. That was the first brand. I think maybe my brother got a hat or something. I saw it and then I was like, “Oh what the hell is this?” I Googled it and then obviously Karmaloop was one of the first things to come up. But yeah, Lifted Research Group. That logo is just stuck in my brain forever. That was one of the first things and then you start going down the spiral. I don't even remember what made me start posting on YouTube. I think it started with seeing a bunch of girls doing it. And I wanted to know what people were buying. So I thought, maybe like I'll show people what I'm buying and it'll catch on. The comments section became awesome. Everyone was putting people on to a bunch of brands.

What was the appeal of Karmaloop back then?
I mean, the selection. It almost taught you what was cool. You trusted them. If a brand was on there, you were like,”OK, this brand's legit,” even though it could have just been someone screen printing in their garage. And it was probably the marketing, dude. They blasted all these events and live sales. No one was doing it like Greg [Selkoe], as far as online.

What were your favorite brands that you discovered through Karmaloop?
Two were at the top, Mishka and 10 Deep. Those were two that I trusted if they made something I'm grabbing it. I think two other ones that were in there were Black Scale and Crooks and Castles. I got to meet [Black Scale founder] Mega. He was doing stuff that was different, bro, not just printing on T-shirts. So for me, he was always the one that was more elevated of all the brands. I obviously copped some HUF. I never was big into Diamond Supply because I wasn't a skater, so I felt like I could be a poser if I was wearing something like that.

What is the biggest difference between streetwear then versus now?
I remember getting clowned for wearing certain things and maybe a year later more people would catch on. Now, if you choose to wear something crazy, I feel like people are more receptive to it.

I also feel like people were way closer. There was community. If you wore any of those brands, you wanted to keep supporting them. I would be going to my local streetwear shop every week and asking when they're gonna get the new 10 Deep in or a new, like, fishtail parka from Black Scale.

I definitely over consumed back then, bro. I did a video of 28 pounds of Karmaloop pickups. I think people are shopping more sustainably, shopping vintage, trying to buy fewer pieces and make them last longer.

Do you feel like brands from the Karmaloop era of streetwear could become trendy in the marketplace again?
I definitely think so. I mean, shit like wide leg pants was stuff I’d pass over when I’d go to the bins. Fast forward three years and it's like everywhere. We wouldn't even have picked them up for 50 cents and now they’re selling for $150. So yeah, I definitely think so, in a more selective state. Maybe not the graphic T-shirts, but some of the cooler cut and sew. 10 Deep had like really cool satin varsity jackets back in the day. I could see something like that popping back up for sure. And maybe maybe some of the classic logo hats. I kind of wish I didn't get rid of everything because I definitely would love to look and see, “Would I wear that nowadays?”

How beneficial were those rep points and your Karmaloop promo code?
I don't remember off top how much I was making, but I think at one point it was like $1,500 a week. So yeah, roughly like six grand a month just off telling people to use my code. In high school and college, that's a lot of money just for YouTube.

If I could go back and tell myself something it would be, “Stop.” You don’t need 75 of the same graphic T-shirt. Overconsumption was something. I felt like I had to keep showing people and a lot of that stuff I wasn't paying for. I was using Karmaloop rep points. But you could convert those rep points into cash. I wish I just converted it all to cash.

Why do you think so many people are nostalgic about Karmaloop?
I think it started everyone's career almost. It started our love for clothing and making clothing. My intro into wanting to dress better was that website. So, we feel like we have to defend it. And rightfully so. It's worthy of defending. I wouldn't have probably gotten a job at Machus, the shop here in Portland, or Jordan Brand. It spiraled everything, dude. Seeing brands succeed made me want to make my own. Fast forward seven years and it's going well. I just feel like it kickstarted everyone. I know people that said they watched my videos in 2014 and now they have jobs at big fashion houses. That era was huge.