How Hood By Air Is Making a Comeback

Shayne Oliver and his team are reviving Hood By Air for the 2020 moment.

On Monday, Oliver and company announced a range of new projects, with Oliver explaining that the time was right due to the fact that “even now, gentrification leaves no physical spaces for new, influential ideas to exist or reside.” Hood By Air, he added, will be “a place for these ideas to have a home.”

The 2020 agenda for Oliver includes a limited edition t-shirt in collaboration with the Uprising charity initiative, the launch of the first limited release Cash Card with Cash App, and a “re-conceptualized” approach to the fashion house built upon four different entities:

• Hood By Air – This arm will set an annual theme via events and activations. 
• HBA – HBA is described as a direct-to-consumer platform and dialogue with “open-mindedness” as its connecting subculture.
• Museum – Archives from the brand’s initial incarnation will live here. 
• Anonymous Club – This arm will work with independent artists, musicians, and institutions “of all forms” toward a “more positive” future.

Speaking on the latter, which was organically developed as an independent platform in support of emerging creatives, Oliver looked ahead to “another world” that’s still in need of being brought into fruition.

“It’s about tearing the old one down while figuring out a way to build a new one up, and in the midst of all of that, amplifying the ideas and conversations that we feel are important,” Oliver explained. “13 years ago, Hood By Air was birthed out of young, black, and POC creatives performing at the highest level. This was the contemporary output because no one else was doing it. Hood By Air resides here to allow risk and be vanguards for where it’s going next. Hood By Air, the new institution.”