Long before Virgil Abloh brought his streetwear savvy to Louis Vuitton’s menswear operations and decades before Hood By Air offered up a gothic sheen on the fashion signifiers that ruled the Brooklyn streets of Shayne Oliver’s adolescent years, Cross Colours shifted the entire fashion paradigm in this urban direction. As the brand’s founder Carl Jones described in a 2014 interview, the underlying goal was to connect with people. “The positive messages, the colors, coming from the street, coming from the ghetto. It’s clothing without prejudice,” Jones said, reiterating the brand’s motto. “It’s clothing for everybody.”
This universal message quickly gained traction with famous celebrities of the era, including Tupac, Will Smith on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air ( Smith was the first major celebrity to wear Cross Colours pieces), and TLC with their oversize Cross Colours pants that they infamously decorated with condoms.
The brand’s inclusive, positive vibe is clearly resonating with artists of today, too. Dua Lipa just sported a Cross Colours denim bucket hat, accented by pops of bright yellow and red in London (the singer wrote she only got two hours of sleep the night before in her Instagram caption). She wore the accessory with an off-kilter sweatshirt and a pair of high-waisted jeans. Cross Colours is due for a comeback given streetwear’s ascendancy, and Lipa is one of the first from today’s celebrity generation to take up the charge.
