"Fire" outfits take on a new meaning when one's talking about actual flames. Well, printed ones, at least. And, all of a sudden, these graphic flames are gracing everyone's hats. What's up with that?
This query was prompted by the sneaky reveal of adidas' No Sleep Rave Club collection, which quietly dropped at stockists like Size? in late June.
adidas' No Sleep Rave Club drop comprises a complete roadman uniform — including a tracksuit and the new, Torsion-adjacent Exomniac sneaker — but I was most intrigued by the cap, a fire-covered lid that looked oddly familiar.
There's even a flame-stitched Superstar to match the cap, really underscoring the relevance of the flame motif within the No Sleep Rave Club line.
Sidebar, but neither adidas nor its stockists have clarified exactly what No Sleep Rave Club (NSRC) actually is, which isn't too surprising since the drop flew pretty far under the radar. Perhaps NSRC is a new adidas sub-label, perhaps it's a one-off pack, whatever.
But it's irrelevant 'cuz we're talking about the flame-printed hat.
It took a minute but then I realized: the adidas NSRC fire hat is oddly similar to the YEEZY GAP cap devised and worn by deeply troubled YEEZY founder Kanye "Ye" West himself wore during a trip to Tokyo with one of his then-paramours.
I'm not the first person to draw those parallels and the designs are hardly one-to-one but the similarities between the two fire-printed hats are uncanny.
These aren't even the only flaming caps of recent vintage, either.
The fire print on the adidas NSRC hat is itself a solid case study for the flaming hat trend as a whole. These accessories all sport cartoonishly illustrative graphic prints, typically utilizing a limited color palette and thick lines to ensure digestibility.
As for where it comes from, though the No Sleep Rave Club hats aren't imitating anything in particular or even necessarily cashing in on any singular trend, they are reflective of rising demand for graphic details born almost incidentally from motorcycle brands.
In fact, the rise of the flaming hat dovetails with booming hype for moto-inspired gear, driving fashionable intrigue from motorcycle jackets to gloves and, of course, hats.
Racing clothes have inspired new collections from labels like AMBUSH and Vetements and the accompanying caps, as perhaps the most approachable accessory of 'em all, make sense as bellwethers for taste.
There's also little Y2K irony here — the demand for flame-printed clothes began in earnest several years back but crystalized as part of the self-aware all-over-printed shirts that turn that one Guy Fieri meme into $1,300 luxury garments.
Fiery clothes inspired a brief yen for flame-printed sneakers, which sport similar fire illustrations to the flaming hats.
The stylized ones presented by YEEZY GAP and adidas NSRC are admittedly sleeker than the yellow and red ones offered by luxury labels and high street stores alike, which I see as an evolution of the trend.
All that being said, these flame hats, which have been produced by labels like Palace and worn by trend-thirsty guests to Fashion Week presentations, were never destined to be a major trend.
Like the brief demand for Von Dutch truckers that rose, peaked, and plummeted in late 2021, the fire caps are destined to burn out bright in a season or two. But, for now, they're worthy of a Buster Poindexter reference.
