We all know Supreme as that one brand. You know, that big name dropping branded bricks and Oreos, while working with luxury fashion houses. Some of us love ’em, while others believe that the iconic streetwear brand has sold out. But before all of this, they were a New York City upstart skate brand during the ’90s.
And when they worked with Larry Clark’s “Kids,” their legacy lived on through young Rosario Dawson and Chloë Sevigny. Good news to anyone who’s curious—Supreme is streaming this film for free right now.
Debuting in 1995, “Kids” is a controversial cult-film with a bare-bones production budget. It stars rising Hollywood actors like Dawson, Sevigny, Justin Pierce and Leo Fitzpatrick. To sum up the film, it’s about an amoral teen trying to sleep with as many women as he can. The plot twist? He doesn’t tell the girls he is HIV positive. One of his early victims makes it her mission to save other girls from him. But everything went off the rails when she finally had a chance to confront him.
Think of “Kids” as an early prototype for edgy, coming-of-age stories like “Skins” or “Euphoria.” It pushes buttons and tackles topics no one will dare touch in the decade it belonged to.
As The New York Times critic Janet Maslin writes, “The film is a wake-up call to the modern world.” It received mixed reviews upon release. It’s so controversial that even feminist scholar bell hooks wrote about it. “It seems like a perfect embodiment of the kind of postmodern, notions of journeying and dislocation and fragmentation,” writes hooks. “Yet when you go to see it, it has simply such a conservative take on gender, on race, on the politics of HIV.”
Most of the cast wore Supreme-heavy wardrobes in the film. So when you watch “Kids,” you’ll also take a peek at the huge streetwear brand’s roots. It has the brand’s iconic box-print tee along with other classic pieces from the brand.
Although it’s not as edgy as it once was, Supreme defined ’90s style: unconscious about branding and free from conformity. We quote Complex—teens dress better when they don’t give a shit.
Watch the movie now on Supreme’s website.
Still from “Kids”