If you had any reservations about Justin Bieber's Purpose tour merch being legitimately considered "fashion," maybe this will squelch your skepticism. An exclusive selection will be carried at Barneys New York starting on Saturday, according to The New York Times.
Expect 31 unisex pieces in the exclusive Barneys assortment (its full name is kind of a mouthful: The Purpose Tour XO Barneys New York - The Wardrobe Collection" ). Prices range from $95 for certain tees to $1,675 for the leather bomber, pictured here. The collection will be carried at both Barneys locations in NYC (the Madison Avenue flagship and the newer Downtown location), its Beverly Hills and San Francisco outposts, as well as online. The pieces exclusively found at Barneys (as well as ones shown in various fleeting pop-ups around the country) were designed by Fear of God designer Jerry Lorenzo and produced by major tour merch company Bravado.
"Our customers appreciate Justin's eclectic style, and can now own items which highlight the look," Jay Bell, Barneys' SVP and GMM of men's designer and developing designer collections, told Refinery29. "Customized hockey jerseys, leather Perfecto jackets, basketball tanks, and distressed plaid flannels and jeans reflect a style which resonates on the streets."
The Purpose tour merch first debuted as a two-day event at a VFiles popup in NYC two months ago, which Bieber announced the week of via Twitter. And it was quite the event: while VFiles didn't release sales stats from the pop-up, over 3,000 people came in total, founder Julie Anne Quay told Refinery29 back in May. Hoodies and T-shirts sold out within a couple of hours on day one of the pop-up, and they were gone within 30 minutes (!) after a day-two restock, per Quay. "I think [this tour merch] signifies the very important synergy between fashion and music and how intrinsically interconnected these worlds are now," Quay said.
Bieber (and his streetwear- and skater-inflected pieces) wasn't the first to cause utter mayhem in the streets of Soho over difficult to acquire music merch: In March, Kanye West's two-day pop-up for The Life of Pablo threads, which were also designed by Lorenzo, was a very profitable shitshow — to the tune of $1 million, according to West, at least.
Plenty of fashion-y people have gotten their hands on the Purpose gear over the past few months, showing it off in those coveted street style cameos, as The New York Times pointed out. But landing on the Barneys' selling floor? That sort of elevates this whole tour merch moment to the next level.
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