The downtown NYC institutions — and masters of subversion — have teamed up for the very first time.
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Supreme is keeping the collaborations coming for its Spring 2023 release slate, teaming with New York City-based art collective Bernadette Corporation for a special collection of apparel and accessories. Much like Supreme’s recent efforts with COOGI, the Bernadette Corporation team-up feels like it was a a long time coming: both entities cut their teeth in downtown New York City during the ’90s before rising to global stardom.
Bernadette Corporation was founded in the summer of 1994 — the same year Supreme opened its first store on Lafayette Street — when Bernadette Van-Huy was asked to host a night at Club USA, a short-lived but extremely influential nightlife hotspot for the downtown NYC scene that many of the Supreme team members would patronize. After Club USA closed its doors, Van-Huy and her partners John Kelsey and Jim Fletcher kept Bernadette Corporation rolling in a variety of new forms. The first of these was a fashion label that ran from 1995 to 1997 and became known for its subversive ethos: putting knockoff goods found in the streets of Chinatown into their runway shows, casting models from the Yellow Pages and creating editorials featuring robbers in the company’s logo as a salute to the Lo-Lives.
Of course, fashion media ate the brand’s rebellious ethos up and it was quickly featured in everything from The New York Times to i-D. The brand also launched its own magazine, Made in USA from 1999 to 2001. After the anti-globalization protests at 2001’s G8 summit and the events of 9/11, Bernadette Corporation began producing documentary films and books, like 2003’s Get Rid of Yourself (which combined G8 riot footage with performances from Chloe Sevigny of Kids fame, herself a Supreme family member as well) and 2005’s Reena Spaulings (a book written by 150 anonymous authors).
The two’s shared history is seen across the collection, which offers a track jacket, short-sleeve work shirt, baseball-style raglan top, soccer top, track pants, chino pants, work shorts and a duo of t-shirts, plus a concise capsule of accessories ranging from the quizzical to the practical: nipple clamps, a Spalding basketball and a small towel. Most of the offerings nod to past Bernadette Corporation projects as well. The short-sleeve work shirt reads “Hell on Earth — and the mutha f*ckin saga continues,” an offering that Bernadette Corporation showed at Deitch Projects in May 1997 and the raglan top features text from Get Rid of Yourself on its front.
You can expect the collection to release via Supreme’s webstore and brick-and-mortar locations globally on May 18 at 11 AM local time — save for Japan, which will recieve the collection May 20.