Tyler, The Creator’s style evolution

Tyler the Creator first exploded into public consciousness as a founding member of totally wild alternative hip hop collective Odd Future back within the mid-00s, before his debut solo mixtape, Bastard, dropped soon after in 2009. His early music, both what he created as a part of Odd Future and when he was out on his own, had a Tyler The Creator Shoes punky, raw, DIY feel to it: a pointy contrast to the excessive, luxe aesthetics of hip hop at the time.

But it had been his 2011 music video for his single, “Yonkers”, with its simple, black and white one frame shot of the rapper wearing a five panel Supreme hat and a graphic, sleeve close up shirt with an oversized beetle crawling over his hand, that brought him the foremost mainstream attention yet. “Yonkers” went on to win Tyler the Creator Best New Artist at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards and, later that year, a one-record deal for a studio album with XL Recordings.

If “Yonkers” laid down the foundations for Tyler’s taste for the surreal, it also had all the first markers of what’s now his impossible-to-miss personal style and his penchant for using clothing to play different characters. But, whether it’s preppy skater, louche grandpa or nightmarish Ted , every character bears an equivalent cornerstones: kaleidoscopic and outlandish, and always with a component of the absurd.

Here, we chronicle Tyler the Creator’s style evolution and his influence on streetwear: from selling Odd Future merch on LA’s Fairfax Avenue to rocking a peroxide wig outside Buckingham Palace , after Theresa May did the proper thing for once and let him back to the united kingdom .

ODD FUTURE SKATER NERD

When Tyler co-founded Odd Future in 2007, merch culture was in its infancy, and Supreme, though a cult underground skater brand, was nowhere near the apex of following it might reach within the late 00s. In both his solo projects and as a member of the Odd Future collective, Tyler’s style channelled a simple California cool, one part punk, one part preppy weirdo skater in single pleat chinos and collegiate short-sleeve button ups.

In 2011, the group opened an Odd Future store on LA’s Fairfax Avenue, round the corner from Vans and Supreme, where LA skaters would hang around . Meaning that, quite just having a gaggle of ready-made fans and ambassadors, the OF line was also heavily influenced by the scene around it. As repped by Tyler and therefore the whole crew, cartoonish prints (graphic donuts were the OF signature) and hoodies with select OF members’ faces printed on them were a staples, and nobody , particularly not Tyler, went anywhere without a five-panel cap.

Members of the collective, among them, Frank Ocean, Domo Genesis, Syd (formerly tha Kyd) and Earl Sweatshirt continued to place out solo project — singles, YouTube skits — but what held them together was the aesthetic language established through a shared style, which, looking back, gives the Odd Future scene of the age and Larry Clark-esque wash.

THE GOLF WANG AMBASSADOR

The Odd Future store eventually expanded with Tyler’s own line, Golf Wang, which outlived the shop as OF eventually disbanded. quite just a clothing line, it grew into the pin that held together everything in Tyler’s aesthetic universe, from his album covers to Tyler The Creator Merch his Camp Flog Gnaw festival. By the time his 2015 album firecracker dropped, his blend of stoner naivety stirred with a pastel coloured acid trip became the definitive style among the LA hip hop and skate scene, and was actually starting to leave its mark on menswear-at-large.

Tyler was, in part, inspired by Pharrell, another polymath with an affinity for candy colours, though it’s around this point he first expressed some signature divisive thoughts on the style industry: “I fucking hate fashion and everything about it. I a bit like making stuff and it happens to be in fucking cotton and, like, materials,” he told Billboard in 2014. Nonetheless, despite himself, Golf Wang grew from merch-adjacent into a bonafide streetwear hit — Supreme’s James Jebbia was an early supporter.