By the time his 2015 album Cherry Bomb 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 in fact beginning to leave its mark on menswear-at-large. More than just a clothing line, it grew into the pin that held together everything in Tyler’s aesthetic universe, from his album covers to his Camp Flog Gnaw festival. The Odd Future store eventually expanded with Tyler’s own line, Golf Wang, which outlived the shop as OF eventually disbanded. Members of the collective, among them, Frank Ocean, Domo Genesis, Syd (formerly tha Kyd) and Earl Sweatshirt continued to put 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 era and Larry Clark-esque wash. As repped by Tyler and 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 no one, particularly not Tyler, went anywhere without a five-panel cap. Meaning that, more than just having a group of ready-made fans and ambassadors, the OF line was also heavily influenced by the scene around it.
In 2011, the group opened an Odd Future store on LA’s Fairfax Avenue, around the corner from Vans and Supreme, where LA skaters would hang out.
In both his solo projects and as a member of the Odd Future collective, Tyler’s style channelled an easy California cool, one part punk, one part preppy weirdo skater in single pleat chinos and collegiate short-sleeve button ups. 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 would reach in the late 00s. 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 right thing for once and let him back into the UK. But, whether it’s preppy skater, louche grandpa or nightmarish Teddy Boy, every character bears the same cornerstones: kaleidoscopic and outlandish, and always with an element of the absurd. If “Yonkers” laid down the foundations for Tyler’s taste for the surreal, it also had all the early markers of what is now his impossible-to-miss personal style and his penchant for using clothing to play different characters. “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. His early music, both what he created as part of Odd Future and when he was out on his own, had a punky, raw, DIY feel to it: a sharp contrast to the excessive, luxe aesthetics of hip hop at the time.īut it was 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, short sleeve button up shirt with an oversized beetle crawling over his hand, that brought him the most mainstream attention yet. Tyler the Creator first exploded into public consciousness as a founding member of totally wild alternative hip hop collective Odd Future back in the mid-00s, before his debut solo mixtape, Bastard, dropped soon after in 2009.
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