The Most Hyped Items of 2020

Image via Complex Original

Joe Freshgoods is far from a rookie, but 2020 felt like the year that the Chicago streetwear veteran finally got his well-deserved recognition from the masses. And while he has been able to continue stacking up wins throughout the year, it all kicked off back in February with his “No Emotions Are Emotions” New Balance 992 collab. The human heart-inspired design reintroduced the 2000s runner to the market, turning heads in the process with an unconventional color palette not usually seen on New Balances 990 series. The pair released to much fanfare during NBA All-Star Weekend in Freshgoods’ hometown of Chicago, which the designer admits didn't have much of an attachment to New Balances beforehand. He changed that. Hundreds of Windy City natives lined a snow-covered North Damen Avenue in single-digit temperatures for a chance to score a pair. Some lucky buyers even wore them out of the store. It made for one of the biggest moments of the weekend. And the exclusivity has made the pair maintain a hefty resale value, with some selling for over $1,000 on StockX, too. 

Perhaps Freshgoods said it best in an interview with Complex back in February: “It feels really good because a lot of these brands spend millions of dollars on these mini moments and it don't take that much money to win over a crowd in your community. When you got the juice, you just got the juice organically.”— Mike DeStefano

Right when everyone thinks Crocs are about to kick the bucket, the foam clog shoe brand comes back stronger than ever. While most of us were quarantined at home and barely going outside, Crocs always held it down for us and kept our feet hella comfy while walking to get the mail. So with lockdown being a global phenomenon, when Crocs released some hyped collaborations this year, you already knew what was going to happen. There were collaboration drops with Nicole McLaughlin, Chinatown Market, and even Kentucky Fried Chicken, but none of these releases were ever as hyped as the Bad Bunny Crocs that dropped in September. The clogs sold out in less than 15 minutes and even led to a petition calling for more pairs to be released. The brand’s collab with the King of Latin Trap retailed for $60 and still resells for as much as $600 on platforms like StockX. —Lei Takanshi

Chrome Hearts denim isn’t just one of the most hyped items of 2020, it’s also one of the most difficult items to purchase on this list. Chrome Hearts only sells a handful of products via e-commerce, which means you have to actually schedule in-person appointments to shop at one of their 28 stores across the world. According to one buyer, the base price for a pair of vintage Levi’s reworked by the brand starts at $1,975 retail before tax, while denim manufactured by Chrome Hearts starts at $3,000. The price only gets higher from there once you start adding on the brand’s iconic leather patches and silver hardware. Even if you do have the racks to cop this pricey denim, you’ll likely be placed on a waitlist and won’t receive a pair for months since it’s produced in such limited quantities. So naturally, the only people who really have easy access to these jeans are celebs like Bella Hadid or Drake. Although a couple of pairs can be found on Grailed, you’ll likely have to still dish out a couple thousand dollars. But for those who are just trying to get the rocker-inspired look, Etsy does happen to have plenty of cheap leather cross patches available.  —Lei Takanshi

Designer Marine Serre probably didn’t realize that her bodysuits, leggings, and turtlenecks covered in a crescent moon print would become the pieces to have in 2020. Celebrities like Yung Miami of City Girls and Kylie Jenner sported the pieces on their IG pages—Jenner and her daughter Stormi wore a matching set—and Beyoncé gave it even more shine by wearing a custom cocoa colored version in “Black Is King,” which, according to fashion search platform Lyst, caused queries for the term "Marine Serre moon bodysuit” to jump by 428 percent. It’s hard to determine why these pieces are so appealing, but Serre says she chose the crescent moon as a print because it speaks to her brand values. "The moon for us is like an icon, an emblem, an image, a representation, a flag, a language, a metaphor, an object of what we believe in: crossing boundaries, hybridity and freedom," Serre tells Dazed. "It keeps evolving with us... It is never stable and timeless at the same time."

Serre’s work is much more than these bodysuits—the late Karl Lagerfeld lauded her dystopian and sustainable designs—but with her crescent moon covered pieces, she struck a chord with people who want to flex on Instagram with a logo that’s instantly recognizable, but new and unexpected. —Aria Hughes

By far one of the strangest products Supreme ever put their name on was a pack of Oreos. When milk’s favorite cookies were dyed red and branded with a Supreme box logo, it fascinated both fans of the brand and those who have never even heard of it. There were countless news articles about $3 packs of Supreme Oreos reselling for as much as $17,000. When the cookies dropped on Supreme’s web shop, they sold out instantly, with resellers buying eight packs at a time. In reality, the Oreos didn't resell for much—according to sold listings, most resellers made less than $10 profit on each pack—but the hype was beyond ridiculous for a branded cookie. Supreme Instagram influencers like Eric Whiteback made Supreme Oreo milkshakes, streetwear YouTubers seriously filmed themselves taste-testing cookies, and dudes even created their own cookie molds to make homemade Supreme Oreos in their kitchen. The hype for these was so real in 2020 that even when these Oreos have passed their expiration date, you can still find heads buying and selling them on Grailed today. If you’re one of those Supreme heads still looking for a pack of Oreos, don't eat them. They are expired now and bootleggers are making fake Supreme Oreos with God knows what. —Lei Takanashi

Up until this year, Drake probably wasn't the first rapper that came to mind when you thought about the best merch. Those discussions usually revolve around names like Kanye West or Travis Scott. But in 2020, Drake’s name is firmly in the conversation for the release tied to his upcoming album Certified Lover Boy. The capsule, made fully in collaboration with Nike, included pieces like white runner caps with a red lipstick kiss staining the brim, T-shirts featuring a portrait of the Lejonhjärta twins, and even socks that released to the public back in October on the newly launched DrakeRelated site. It all sold out quickly, but the best piece from the collection was the hoodie, which released in grey and black. The design, large cursive “CLB” lettering across the chest with a pink rose weaving through the “B,” was first worn by Drake and company in a dimly lit garage during the “Only You Freestyle” video. It later made a cameo in Drake’s monumental “Laugh Now Cry Later” video filmed on Nike’s campus in Beaverton, Oregon. In between, it was shown off by everyone in Drake’s circle on social media, and even rocked by LeBron James in the NBA's Orlando bubble. It gained more attention each step of the way before it finally surprise-dropped to the masses in late October. For anyone who didn’t score some of the desirable CLB merch, the album promo capsule was merely a precursor to Drake’s official apparel line with Nike, NOCTA, that is set to drop before 2020 wraps. Best of luck. —Mike DeStefano

When you give a major fashion house its own Air Jordan 1, the hype and anticipation they garner is a given, no matter how many people (hint: not many) will actually have the opportunity to own a pair for themselves. So it should come as no surprise that Dior’s Air Jordan 1 collab is on this list. The collab is rather simplistic in its design, a white and gray upper crafted of premium Italian leather with Dior’s monogram print covering the jacquard fabric Swoosh, and special Wings and Nike Air logos tweaked to read “Air Dior” and “Dior Air,” respectively. But the hype wasn’t going to escape it, no matter how it looked. 

Hype magnet Travis Scott was bestowed the honor of debuting the pair on his Instagram shortly before Dior’s Fall 2020 runway presentation in Miami back in December 2019. He also appeared in the official campaign draped head to toe in Dior x Jordan apparel. Following a brief delay because of the pandemic, the Low and High versions both finally released via raffle at select Dior stores around the world in July for $2,000 each, a price already out of each for plenty of hopeful owners. Now they fetch five figures on the resale market. Unless you’re a celebrity, or extremely lucky, you probably don’t own these. And likely never will. But we all knew we had no chance from the beginning. Like Shawn Stüssy and KAWS collabs before it, Kim Jones’ Air Jordan 1 once again showed that he knows exactly how to fuse streetwear with luxury fashion. We’ll just have to settle for admiring these from afar. —Mike DeStefano

Platinum albums. Sneaker collaborations with Nike and Jordan Brand. Exclusive tour merch. A Quarter Pounder meal (add bacon) with a medium order of french fries, barbecue sauce, and a Sprite from McDonald’s. One of these things is much more unconventional than the rest for a rapper to endorse, but all of them are among the official endeavors that Travis Scott has stamped his name on. If there was any question to the limitations of what Scott could successfully put his hype machine behind, then the Travis Scott Meal, a limited offering served throughout September 2020 at Mickey D’s for $6, provided the answer. There are none. La Flame’s special order marked the first time a celebrity had stamped their name on a meal at the iconic fast food chain since Michael Jordan did it in the ’90s. Aside from the meal, Scott also dropped an absolute shit ton of merch that perfectly mixed the playful nostalgia of getting a Happy Meal as a kid with the hype connected with everything  the Houston rapper touches. A McNugget body pillow was the most meme-able. Official goodies crafted by Cactus Plant Flea Market were probably the most valuable to the streetwear crowd. But at the end of the day, he got people to steal signage off windows, blast “Sicko Mode” through drive-thru speakers, and sell receipts on eBay all for promoting a damn fast food cheeseburger. If that isn’t hype, I don’t what is. —Mike DeStefano

Getting anything from Beyoncé is worth sharing on Instagram, but a whole rolling rack of clothes from her Adidas x Ivy Park collection? In 2020 that became the ultimate flex for influencers and celebrities alike. In 2016, Beyoncé partnered with Topshop, a British fast fashion retailer, to introduce Ivy Park, an athleisure line named after her daughter Blue Ivy, and Parkwood Park, a park in Houston Beyoncé frequented as a child. But once allegations of sexual, physical, and racial abuse came out against Sir Philip Green, who ran Arcadia Group, the firm that owns Topshop, Beyoncé bought 50 percent of the business back from them and announced a deal with Adidas in 2019. In January 2020, we were inundated with her first drop of maroon and orange leggings, bodysuits, biker shorts, sports bras, and sneakers. Beyoncé modeled each piece of the assortment for the e-commerce site and she starred in the campaign. This, coupled with celebrity posts, felt like a full social media takeover, and the strategy was effective. The collection sold out online within hours and  drew lines outside of Adidas stores globally. She followed that up with a Drip 2 and Drip 2.2 later in the year, which also sold out. Everyone’s adopted the drop schedule that streetwear brands helped pioneer, but Beyoncé made it her own and captured our attention. —Aria Hughes

Without question, Telfar is a brand that deserves all the hype. Telfar Clemens’ Black-owned, genderless clothing brand is one of the best out right now and the much-coveted Telfar shopping bag only scratches the surface of his work as a designer. But let’s face it, this bag was ridiculously hyped this year. Everyone from Bella Hadid to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore that Telfar bag. And when these bags were set for a much-needed restock in July, Telfar shut down its web store after resellers caught wind of  the “Bushwick Birkin” drop and botted the site so hard it crashed. “The bots and resellers are definitely an issue, and an unfortunate one since what they are doing goes against what we are about,” Clemens told Complex in an interview. “But at the end of the day, we are not trying to create fake scarcity.”  Unlike many other hyped items on this list, this bag was actually attainable since Telfar rolled out a ‘Bag Security Program’ that guaranteed customers a Telfar bag via preorder. Telfar is truly for the people. —Lei Takanshi