Thumping, playful club music and darting green lasers straight out of The Matrix greet visitors entering the studio space in Downtown Manhattan where Sundae School, a cannabis lifestyle brand, is showing their Fall/Winter 2019 collection as part of New York Fashion Week: Men’s.
The wall behind the runway is set up to look like a computer screen in a government lab. One tab displays a timer ominously counting down the seconds until the show starts. Other tabs pop up around it, appearing to display mathematical charts and graphs. I realize, upon closer inspection, that they are all about weed.
The timer runs out, the graphics show a user named “KOREANJESUS420” logging in, and the models start to walk.
Courtesy of Sundae School
In the nearly two years that Sundae School has been in the fashion game, they’ve taken streetwear to new heights—and highs. They categorize their pieces as “smokewear,” breathing new life into the passé stereotype that if you’re a stoner, you’re likely decked out in a drug rug and Phish t-shirt.
“We have a beanie that says “Blazed but professional,” says creative director, Dae Lim. “You can be both.”
This new collection, titled “The Green Rush,” is an ode and a foreshadowing, says Lim, inspired by the recent legalization of medical marijuana in his native South Korea and the impending recreational legalization in New York. The moniker is a tribute to the California Gold Rush, from which he draws many similarities to the present cannabis industry.
“This is not the first time history has manifested in this phenomenon before,” he says, referencing also the Japanese colonization of Korea in 1910. “We want to show the vibrance and ability in the legal cannabis market, but also the story of greed. It’s really a gamble, and [ …
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Author: Jenny Hart / High Times
