Media giant HYPEBEAST announces new kid-centric brand, hypekids

HYPEBEAST, the lifestyle and fashion behemoth whose cultural influence has been the subject of many a think-piece, has expanded into the largely untapped world of children’s fashion with the announcement of the latest brand in their portfolio, hypekids.

The platform will not only showcase myriad lookbooks of the latest trends in children’s streetwear, footwear, and toys, dressed up in HYPEBEAST’s trademark narrative style, but also innovative multimedia pieces of content which leverage on the full power of online technology. Among these are “youth-orientated unboxing videos”, created by partner Kids Foot Locker.

“Our readers, who have become parents, have expressed a desire to share and spread their passion for fashion and youth culture to the next generation,” HYPEBEAST founder Kevin Ma said in a statement.

“By taking the insights and experiences we’ve gained from HYPEBEAST, we look forward to positioning hypekids at the forefront of culture and style for today’s young fashion icons.”

When Ma founded HYPEBEAST – the sneaker blog that started it all – the fashion culture they were chasing was still largely on the fringes of social consciousness.

As Ma told Tech Wire Asia (TWA), sneakerheads got most of their information from a scattering of online forums and the occasional magazine piece. Ma realised that by consolidating all this disparate content into a kind of “personal journal of sorts”.

It was a winning formula: Ma found his niche, a space with the potential to grow exponentially, and created a product that would eventually come to help define a culture. Hypekids is taking on that tried-and-true method and helping the company expand its demographic of readers.

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Perhaps what’s also interesting about the emergence of hypekids is it plays a role in demonstrating HYPEBEAST’s habit of continuing to look further into the future, and constantly thinking about how to further scale their company. Fashion forms the bedrock of HYPEBEAST and it’s a kind of inheritance, something parents will pass down to their children.

“It’s little surprise the readers who have grown up with us are now looking to introduce their kids to their lifestyle through the language of streetwear,” Ma said. He points to the fact established brands such as Jordan and Little Giants are beginning to cater more and more to the children’s vertical.

“hypekids was founded as a response to this demand, as a one-stop shop that showcases the latest fashion and lifestyle products designed for the smaller hypebeasts among us, in the same spirit of consolidation HYPEBEAST was originally created to fulfil,” Ma said.

HYPEBEAST’s total comfort with the social media age helps – future generations will all be connected digitally in a way their parents were not. HYPEBEAST’s advantage over traditional fashion magazines was that it was fostered in the crucible that is the social Internet.

“HYPEBEAST grew initially through online mentions by influencers such as Lupe Fiasco and word-of-mouth,” Ma said.

SEE ALSO: Fashion e-commerce store Zalora to pull out of Philippines and Indonesia

The social Internet essentially gave birth to HYPEBEAST and it is appearing to stay close to their roots. The diverse contents they are pushing out across various, sharply targeted brands indicate the company’s determination to remain relevant to technology. Tech has always been the backbone of HYPEBEAST’s empire and they don’t appear to be giving it up just yet.

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