Creative Director of Supreme Resigns Due to Systemic Racism

The popular streetwear giant Supreme has lost its creative director due to – systemic racism. After a year and a half, Tremaine Emory has left this position, explaining the reasons for his resignation on his Instagram profile as well as in a letter addressed to the management.

For instance, he shared a photo of the book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo and recommended it to the employees and leadership of Supreme to ‘better understand what systemic racism is and how it affects people of color living in a patriarchal system built to benefit only white heterosexual men.’

Emory also shared his correspondence with founder James Jebbia regarding the cancellation of collaboration with African-American artist Arthur Jafa, of which he was neither informed nor consulted. The collaboration with Jafa, it can be inferred, was just the last straw for Emory, while he considers the fundamental problem to be the deeply rooted racism within the structures of Supreme, which, like most in the business, is predominantly white.

Problems Pile Up

The company has stated that they do not agree with the accusations of the now former creative director, who, by the way, is the first in the 30-year history of the brand. Until his arrival, creative decisions were made by founder Jebbia, and Emory was hired after the brand was acquired by VF Corp for $2.1 billion, the owner of North Face and Vans.

Interestingly, Supreme has previously been accused by part of the audience of wanting to profit from the rich Black history, while Jebbia dismissed such claims, stating that this rich culture is inspirational to him and is one of the key drivers of the entire streetwear industry.

He named the brand after the song A Love Supreme by John Coltrane, and in campaigns, he often featured influential Black cultural leaders such as Malcolm X or rapper Wu-Tang Clan. The fact that he hired talented Tremaine Emory, who previously worked for Virgil Abloh and Kanye West, was supposed to prove to the audience that he is not a ‘blackwasher’, but after the racist accusations, it is hard to see how that will be possible.

However, Emory is not the only problem for Supreme. In fact, in the first quarter of this year, the brand recorded nearly $30 million less in revenue compared to the same period last year, amounting to $523.1 million.