The History of 80's, 90's, and 00's Cult Alternative Labels
Tripp, Serious, Kikwear, and Lip Service
Prior to the pop of the Dot-com bubble, which saw a steep acceleration in online shopping - punks, freaks and goths had to flex their dedication muscle if they wanted to roam the streets dressed head to toe in anti-establishment duds. Mail order catalogs, ordering by phone, independent boutiques, and later, home-coded flash websites were the only way to obtain alternative clothing from the few companies who were making it in the United States.
In 1991, Hot Topic began carrying clothing from independent, musically informed labels like Lip Service, Tripp, Serious, and Kikwear. The loudest store in the mall continued it’s American expansion into the new millennium, and by the mid 2000s weirdo mall rats from the Midwest to Appalachia could enter the dimly lit haven.
Some of these labels went on to be powerhouses in the fast fashion industry of the present, others folded and can only be found in the secondhand market place, but all have their own unique DIY origin story.
Serious
The genesis of Serious seeded in 1991 Los Angeles, when founder Magnus Walker began fashioning floppy hats out of velvet and selling them on the Venice boardwalk. He eventually transitioned into clothing, deconstructing his favorite shirts and pants, piecing them out for patterns, and building them back in an array of experimental fabrics.
The new label would be called Serious, a cheeky nod to the fact the clothing was anything but. Serious became known for it’s experimentation in color and texture, with the brand being instantly recognizable for mixing vinyl, faux fur, mesh, and sequined creations - even using unconventional materials like velvet car upholstery.
The brand’s home base, located in a warehouse in the garment district of downtown Los Angeles, employed eight people - with a satellite boutique on Melrose serving as a showroom. The shop frequently hosted shows for local musicians, and became the place to buy clubbing and stage wear for anyone brave enough. Naturally, some famous faces took notice of Serious and the brand was seen on the backs of bands such as Alice Cooper, who’s guitarist Ryan Roxie can be seen wearing a leopard faux fur hat during their Rock ‘n’ Roll Carnival tour.
“We look at our line and go - that looks like something Mick Jagger might have worn in the ‘70s. We’ve got a Joan Jett and a Debbie Harry top. It’s all rooted in music.” - Magnus Walker
At it’s peak, Serious was supplying stylists with clothing for video shoots, ads, and print media. They hosted non-traditional fashion shows and monthly nights at Moguls nightclub. Dubbed Club Serious, these parties served as advertisement for the brand, with it girls, club kids, and rockstars strutting around the room in Serious garb.
Kikwear
It was a big year for Los Angeles alternative fashion, and just like Serious, in 1991 Kikwear Industries was founded by childhood friends Alex Berenson, Dusty Cohen and Gregg Ostrow. Tired of their boxer underwear “being tight in all the wrong places”, they set out to make swamp crotch extinct by creating an underwear design they called the “Longy Boxer”, which featured an extended overall length of 6 inches, as well 4 inches at the crotch.
The comfortable fit was a hit, and as demand increased they saw an opportunity to transition into streetwear by applying the same calling card to pants. In the beginning, they focused on classic streetwear designs, influenced by the domination of hip hop and skate culture in the early 1990s.
However, Kikwear really found their niche when they discovered their baggy pants were being worn in the up-and-coming underground rave scene, who’s participants favored clothes with ease of movement for dancing. Kikwear started designing specifically for their new found base, creating pants that embraced functional club-wear design. They included pockets large and small, from tiny hidden stash pockets to ones enormous enough to fit water bottles.
As the brand grew, so did their pant’s legs, with Kikwear being known as the brand that carried up to a 69 in circumference. Known to insiders as “Phats”, these super sized hems were carried in specialty retailers like Hot Topic, where the width of the legs were labeled with the customers in mind. The amount of fabric on the pants made the displays so heavy, there were instances where they ripped right out of the wall!
The wide legs were not without controversy, and became a topic of conversation in a 1998 publication of the Los Angeles Times which detailed the most likely clothing items to be banned in the Orange County school district by officials:
“One trend that has been growing, literally, for seasons is the ever-widening pant leg favored by fans of electronica music and picked up by the mainstream. The extremes in this style come from Los Angeles-based manufacturers Kikwear and JNCO. Most sold are 33 to 40 inches, plenty of yardage to hide feet and, as some school officials fear, weapons.
There’s also the danger of tripping, administrators say. And they definitely don’t like it when the hems are left to fray - fad or not.
“They think it’s gangster,” huffed Los Amigos High junior Eryn Devine, 16. “It doesn’t matter what you wear. If you look at someone wrong or they don’t like you, they’re still going to go after you.”
“Even if they ban all this clothing, we’re still going to have problems with gangs and racism,” insists Eryn’s classmate, Ian MacMillan, 17.
Adds Eryn: “What we need are more counselors. Our school is overpopulated. Drugs are rampant. Those are the problems.”
The brand had a short lived spinoff juniors line, Greed Girl, which sold more traditional teen pieces in catalogues like Delia*s. One of their most successful spinoffs was the femme focused Kikgirl, designed by former JNCO creative Liza Guttierez - which sold skirts, pants, and tops in a wider variety of styles that catered to the growing scene of girl skaters and ravers.
Kikwear focused on non-traditional marketing techniques and took advantage of their proximity to Hollywood. Costumes they provided can be seen on actors such as Samuel L. Jackson for the Tarantino film Jackie Brown.
Lip Service
It’s time to rewind to 1985. Hollywood skate-punk Drew Bernstein founded Lip Service in his parents garage after his friend Ellen of Ape Leather introduced him to the world of wholesale clothing.
For much of my researching I use the Wayback Machine - an invaluable resource when crawling the web for information dating back to the 1990s. Let’s step inside the machine and head to www.lip-service.com in the year 2002, where we can hear about the story of the brand in Drew’s own (abbreviated) words…
“I was 14 years old, and still shopping with my mom at the May co. When I found exactly what I was looking for... BRIGHT ORANGE, HANG TEN SHORTS, SIZE 36!!! Keep in mind that my waist was about 20"... I was a total skate rat kid and these shorts were the perfect expression of my rebellious individualism. They were my first attempt at fashion.
I was working as a clean-up guy on a construction site. I was making $5 an hour, coming home all dirty, tired and miserable every night. Meanwhile, my friend, Ellen, the owner of Ape Leather, introduced me to the wonderful world of wholesale. I got my first order and did the math. I just made $130 in an hour... f**k that manual labor shit!!! There's real money to be made.
Six months later, I was still a freak; I was 21, had long black dreadlocks and was into the glam and death rock scenes. One day I asked a buyer if they would buy leggings with prints on them, you know in the 80's it was all about leggings. I used mom's copy machine to create a skull and dagger graphic. I took apart a pair of leggings and found out how much fabric I would need to make a pair. The leggings sold like hot cakes out of stores on Melrose like Retail Slut and up the coast to San Francisco.
I noticed that London designers were using black shiny vinyl and I thought it would be really f***n' cool as a motorcycle jacket. Into my dad's garage I went, scrounging saw horses, plywood, and a cutting tool. People loved the designs and they wanted more.
The business was really starting to grow now... I moved from my parent's garage to a small warehouse. Three years later, I opened a couple of retail stores, one on Melrose, the other on Hollywood Boulevard. I hired a sales rep and my girlfriend was working with me too. It wasn't easy; there were a lot of long grueling hours, stress over production and the usual screw heads in the business world to deal with. I've gotta admit, though, I've had some lucky breaks.” - Drew Bernstein
Tripp
The same year that Lip Service was founded, across the states another alternative label was fostering it’s beginnings. In 1985, Daang Goodman founded Tripp NYC while living in the East Village. Born in Laos, Daang’s journey making clothing started when she was only eight years old. Her family moved to Thailand in 1975, propelled by their home country falling to communism. In the early 1980s she arrived in the United States to study in San Francisco.
Soon after she found herself in NYC, working with her husband, Ray, at his boutique Trash and Vaudeville - an underground staple for vintage clothing and designs with an experimental bend. It was a match made in heaven, Daang had been making her own clothing for years, using her extensive knowledge of rock and roll as inspiration for her designs. One day Ray suggested she make a collection for the store.
“The impetus to do it was that we realized there was stuff that we wanted that we just weren't able to find, so we figured, let's make it so that somebody would come in and get inspired, or on the other hand, someone would come in and inspire us and we’d think, “Oh that’s really cool, we should have that in the store.” Eventually one thing led to another to where that grew into a really important part of the business and then we started getting approached by stores in other cities that wanted to stock Tripp.” - Ray Goodman
Trash and Vaudeville was the spot for musicians in the city to stop, boasting an A-list artistic clientele like Price, Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, David Johansen of The New York Dolls, The Ramones, or all of Blondie. With this level of influence, it was only a matter of time before Tripp was being spotted all over the city.
One of Tripp’s most iconic pieces came from the mind of their then 12 year old, who requested a modified pair of bondage pants that had a baggy skater fit. The pants ended up taking the early to mid 2000s by storm, and by 2003 accounted for 50% of their sales.
“The thing about Tripp is that it doesn’t wear you, you wear the clothes. It’s about the artist. I think that all of the Tripp and Trash customers are artists themselves. They’re creative and they appreciate the work that goes into every piece. It makes them feel like themselves and the adjustable details allow them to express themselves.” - Daang Goodman
10% of profit from sales on our webshop this month will go directly to Beloved Asheville.
A mutual aid organization providing life saving resources to our most vulnerable neighbors here in Western North Carolina. Many of whom have been living outside for the last three months after their homes were destroyed by the floodwater from Helene. They are now doing so in dangerous freezing weather, with no clear end in sight. Please donate directly if you can!
Sources:
Clothing That Takes to the Glittering Stage
THE BIRTH OF THE LOUDEST STORE IN THE MALL
Alice Cooper - Rock N' Roll Carnival - St. Paul - August 3, 1997
1995 Tripp Pants Are Bigger Than Ever
Interview with the president of Kikwear!
Most Likely to Attire for the Big Ban on Campus
Bubblegum Slut Zine Archive: Drew Bernstein – Lip Service Clothing
http://www.seriousstore.com/ (2002)
https://lip-service.com/ (2002)
That was so interesting, thank you so much. I thrifted a Tripp jacket for my husband many years ago; it looks like a band leader’s jacket with snaps, very My Chemical Romance. I haven’t seen the other brands, but now I know what to look for when I’m out shopping. Love this!💕