Hood By Air is a fashion and streetwear brand based in New York City co-founded by designers Shayne Oliver and Raul Lopez.
[11] Founded in 2006 by town designers Shayne Oliver and Raul Lopez, Hood By Air has gone from a t-shirt oriented streetwear project to a cult brand at the forefront of New York's fashion new guard.
[14] During this time he developed a strong link between his fashion concepts and music, which would underpin the Hood By Air brand and Oliver's creative career to date.
[17] Soon after, with an expanding fan base and an enthusiastic reception from fashion buyers, Hood By Air found its first stockists in OAK NYC [18] and Seven New York.
From 2009, whilst working on Hood By Air Oliver was involved with GHE20G0TH1K, a club night launched by Jazmin Soto, aka Venus X, in New York City.
Oliver also met Venezuelan musician Alejandra Ghersi, aka Arca at GHE20G0TH1K, forming a relationship that led to the pair working together on a continued basis.
Bringing filmmaker, Leilah Weinraub, on board as CEO the pair formulated business plans that led to a revised focus on fashion presentations.
In May 2012, Hood By Air was included in Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard’s group show ‘Ideal Pole’ at Ramiken Crucible gallery, New York.
[23] VFILES would become known for stocking an assortment of emerging brands at the crest of a creative new wave in streetwear, including Virgil Abloh's Pyrex, Been Trill, and Fear of God, alongside Hood By Air.
In the months following the relaunch moment, Hood By Air and Been Trill released a collaborative t-shirt that would be popularised through extensive exposure by A$AP Rocky, leading to a new frenzy around the brand.
“It's flashier, with details that are louder, to show off a little bit.”[27] In October 2014 MoMA PopRally presented Id, a party performance and multimedia installation by Hood By Air, held at the Museum of Modern Art.
[11] Amidst the business growth under New Guards Group, however, Oliver felt a sense of creative regression as a consequence of focusing heavily on product, taking away from investing his energy into the cultural landscape that had always defined Hood By Air.
Re-orienting towards conceptual presentations meant he had the freedom once again to design clothes and accessories specifically for runway moments, without such commercial pressure to sell through as the brand experienced during the New Guards Group era.
Reflecting on the collection, Vogue suggested that Oliver's time in Italy had added to the brand's technical expertise: “the new clothes reflect the strides he's made: There's a confidence that runs through, from the mind-boggling technical complexities of the outwear to the cheeky slogan bodysuits to the streetwise buckets hats”, adding that Oliver has an “ instinct for what's next”[32] In May 2016, Hood By Air held a brand presentation at the Delano Hotel during Art Basel Miami Beach.
[33] Having re-engaged the spirit of the brand upon returning to New York City, Oliver and his team began to experience a new challenge; continuing the scale of the post-New Guards Group operation as a small, core team — most of whom were not fashion insiders or business people but artists, musicians, image-makers, and other figures from the New York creative industries with close ties to the brand and its cultural workings.
[30] Prior to Hood By Air's final pre-hiatus show, Shayne Oliver was approached by Helmut Lang’s editor-in-residence, Isabella Burley, to take up a position at that brand as designer-in-residence.
Only one month after Oliver had nullified his design responsibilities at Hood By Air he introduced his first offering under Helmut Lang, presenting the brand's Spring 2018 Ready-To-Wear collection in September 2017 at New York Fashion Week.
Applying his vision to the Colmar A.G.E (Advanced Garment Exploration) FW18 line, Oliver progressively reworked the brand's mountain attire, adding a sense of outsized surreality to conventional outdoors wear.
So Hood By Air will be a place for these ideas to have a home.”[42] In March 2021, the brand fully relaunched with an advertising campaign helmed by supermodel Naomi Campbell.
[44] Proceeds from the t-shirt sales were donated to several charities, including Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, Emergency Release Fund, and Gays & Lesbians Living In A Transgender Society.
In a 2015 article, Oliver's designs were described by i-D Magazine as “[questioning] gender, race and power, cutting through the noise of the fashion world with razor sharp precision”.
[9] In a short biographical entry on the brand, the LVMH Prize describes Hood By Air as “re-imagining Americana uniforms” by “combining the fluidity of youth culture with the refinement of luxury fashion”.
[48] Referencing Hood By Air's logo-heavy aesthetic, The Cut explains “they were more about signifying membership in a tribe than they were about advancing any design agenda.” The article continues: “aggressively inclusive, HBA wasn't gay or straight.
This art world of downtown, in Manhattan, and this other world that I went home to—there are things that connect them.”[49] In the same article, fashion journalist, Maya Singer, posits that in its early years Hood By Air communicated a sense of authority though "exaggerated sizing, big logos, and in-your-face graphics”, making a connection between these qualities of HBA and the “quintessential attributes of urban streetwear”.
Hood By Air worked prominently with designers Michael Magnum, Oscar Sanchez, and Virgil Abloh on graphics, particularly during its early years.
For this, Nirui and Lee commissioned outfits by Hood By Air and designer Eckhaus Latta to be worn by Barbie dolls with a variety of realistic body-types.
[50] The brand also collaborated with musicians A$AP Rocky, Kanye West, and Rihanna,[1] and won awards from LVMH and the Council of Fashion Designers of America.