Tremaine Emory Is Releasing an Arthur Jafa Collab After All. Here's How We Got Here

Tremaine Emory will be releasing a collaboration with Arthur Jafa after all. 

On April 22, 2024, Emory took to Instagram to announce the collab with the visual artist that will release through Denim Tears on April 26. 

As you may recall, a Supreme collab with Jafa was reportedly scheduled to release during Emory’s tenure as creative director. It was ultimately scrapped without Emory’s knowledge. That incident coupled with Emory’s reports of systemic racism within the streetwear company led to him stepping away from his position in August 2023. 

These events are referenced by the upcoming Denim Tears release, which features a zip-up hoodie covered in an all-over print that reads, “Systemic Racism Controls America.” It’s a clever flip of hoodies that read “Illegal Business Controls America” that were released by Supreme as part of its Spring/Summer 2007 season. 

At the time of publication, Denim Tears did not respond to Complex’s request for comment.

The Denim Tears x Jafa announcement also comes at an interesting time. This week, Supreme is celebrating its 30th anniversary highlighted by a special three-volume monograph set that archives three decades of graphic T-shirts releasing on April 25. With this reference to one of the brand’s rarest items, Emory is making sure people aren’t forgetting about Supreme’s problematic inner workings, which he brought to light last year. 

What once seemed like a fruitful relationship between a streetwear institution and one of fashion’s brightest minds has done a complete 180. Here’s how we got here. 

In February 2022, Emory was named creative director of Supreme. He was the first individual to hold the position. In a 2024 interview on Hypebeast’s Business of HYPE, Emory explains how his late friend Virgil Abloh was a major catalyst for him taking the role. “A big part of why I said yes [to Supreme] was because V passed away. I was like, ‘Well, who do the kids got that looks like them in a position like that?’" Emory said. "V’s advice was like, ‘I don’t know if you should do it. Why are they asking us now?’ That’s literally the last conversation I had with V. He’s like, ‘I don’t know if it’s worth the energy it would take for you to change it culturally.’"

The Spring/Summer 2023 collection marked the first season fully under Emory’s creative direction. Emory injected his taste into the brand’s established codes by tapping close friends like Cactus of Cactus Plant Flea Market for varsity jackets or releasing a collaboration with Coogi that he referred to as a “love letter to the block” at the time of its release in a now-deleted Instagram post. The Emory era of Supreme seemed to be off to a promising start before it came to its abrupt conclusion.

After just two full seasons at Supreme, Spring/Summer 2023 and Fall/Winter 2023, Emory stepped away from his role as creative director. Emory revealed that systemic racism and a lack of transparency related to the shelved collaboration with Jafa were the main cause of his exit. In a series of now-deleted Instagram posts from Aug. 31, 2023, Emory detailed how he and Supreme could not align on an official statement regarding his departure. Emory wished to explain that he “left Supreme because of systemic racial issues the company has.” Supreme did not agree to publicly acknowledge this. 

In a since-deleted IG caption, Emory detailed the conversation he had with Supreme founder James Jebbia: “James agreed there should have been discourse about the project with me being that I was the creative director and I’m black. Supremes statement in the @bof article is a lie to hide the systemic racism that lies deep within supreme and almost all white Owned corporations. I wanted to work with supreme to change these things and instead I told I was racially charged, emotional, and using the wrong forum by bring up systemic racism in a meeting when I was asked if we should work with a black female artist whilst this jafa project was secretly shutdown without anyone talking to me. That’s why I resigned…james agreed with all of my points and said he’s gonna change supreme…he’s gotta stand on what he said to me and the whole c suite and head of design gotta stand on what was said.”

The capsule collection with Jafa was reportedly going to feature pieces like graphic T-shirts and hoodies featuring some of the visual artist’s notable works. One of them was his 2017 sculpture Ex-Slave Gordon, a recreation of an image of a formerly enslaved person that revealed his whip-scarred back titled Peter. Another depicted a lynching. In an interview with Touré, Emory spoke about the collaboration being scrapped without his knowledge despite being previously supported by Jebbia. According to Emory, Jebbia told him, “This is important for people to see because it's still happening to Black people.” Two Black employees at the company ultimately raised concerns about the imagery that was being featured and the project was scrapped without notifying Emory.

Emory told Touré that his resignation was a response to Supreme’s, “thoughtlessness and their lack of response when I was trying to garner discourse.”

News of the Jafa collaboration was met with mixed reactions on social media. Some sided with Emory and his artistic choices, while others questioned the idea of selling items with these types of images to a mainly white clientele.

On April 22, 2024, Emory announced that his collaboration with Jafa would see the light of day. Of course, Supreme has nothing to do with it. Emory will release a capsule through his own brand, Denim Tears. While the information surrounding the collaboration is currently scarce, he did post a few of the items. Tré, founder of Neighbors Skate Shop, models a baby blue zip-up hoodie covered in an all-over print that reads, “Systemic Racism Controls America.” Emory is spotlighting his claims against the streetwear brand using one of its own designs. The hoodie is a flip of the “Illegal Business Control America” hoodies that dropped as part of Supreme’s Spring/Summer 2007 range. Along with the zip-up, Tré is also sporting a graphic T-shirt featuring Jafa’s 2017 work LeRage on the chest. The work depicts a Black version of The Incredible Hulk pounding the ground. According to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, LeRage is inspired by Jafa’s childhood love of comics and is meant to comment on “gender, Blackness, and cultural perception.”

It is unclear at this time if more items will be included in the collection or if some of the items that will be released via Denim Tears resemble the ones initially intended for the Supreme collab.