Billionaire Boys Club (BBC) is a

streetwear Streetwear is a style of casual clothing which became global in the 1990s. It grew from New York hip hop fashion and Californian surf culture to encompass elements of sportswear, punk, skateboarding and Japanese street fashion. Eventually haut ...

label founded by

Pharrell Williams Pharrell Lanscilo Williams (; born April 5, 1973) is an American record producer, rapper, singer, and songwriter. Alongside close colleague Chad Hugo, he formed the hip hop and R&B production duo the Neptunes in the early 1990s, with whom h ...

and

Nigo is a Japanese fashion designer, disc jockey (DJ), record producer and entrepreneur. He is best known as the creator of the urban clothing line A Bathing Ape (Bape) and currently serves as creative director for Kenzo. Additionally he is a membe ...

in 2003. Its sublabels include Ice Cream, Bee Line, and Billionaire Girls Club.

History

In 2003, singer

and his manager Rob Walker partnered with fashion designer and

A Bathing Ape A Bathing Ape (or BAPE) is a Japanese fashion brand founded by Nigo (Tomoaki Nagao) in Ura-Harajuku in 1993.David FischerNIGO Announces His Definitive Departure from BAPE'' highsnobiety'', May 25, 2013

creator

, and Japanese graphic designer, Sk8thing to create Billionaire Boys Club. The brand is credited with helping popularize streetwear's visibility in high fashion. BBC debuted in Williams' 2003 " Frontin'" music video. In 2004, Ice Cream, originally a subsidiary of Billionaire Boys Club, unveiled its

skate Skate or Skates may refer to: Fish * Skate (fish), several genera of fish belonging to the family Rajidae * Pygmy skates, several genera of fish belonging to the family Gurgesiellidae * Smooth skates or leg skates, several genera of fish belongi ...

-centric footwear line, licensed by

Reebok Reebok International Limited () is an American fitness footwear and clothing manufacturer that is a part of Authentic Brands Group. It was established in England in 1958 as a companion company to J.W. Foster and Sons, a sporting goods company ...

. Ice Cream graphics feature all-over print motifs of beepers, dollar signs and diamonds. A year later, Billionaire Boys Club branched out from its online origin, setting up a store in Tokyo, Japan and later expanding to New York and London. In August 2011 rapper

Jay-Z Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), known professionally as Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and founder of Manhattan-based conglomerate talent and entertainment agency Roc Nation. He is regarded as one o ...

, a frequent collaborator of Williams, partnered with the Billionaire Boys Club line. Later the rapper, through a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

with

Iconix ICONIX is a software development methodology which predates both the Rational Unified Process (RUP), Extreme Programming (XP) and Agile software development. Like RUP, the ICONIX process is UML Use Case driven but more lightweight than RUP. ICONI ...

, invested in the brand. The following year BBC recorded high $25 million to $30 million in volume, up from $12 million. Williams reacquired Iconix's stake in the business in 2017. In 2012, BBC launched Bee Line, its sister brand for the female consumer.

Locations

Billionaire Boys Club has a US

flagship store A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the fi ...

in SoHo, New York City, a European flagship store in

Soho, London Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

, and a store in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

. Several stores that retail Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream clothing exist across

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

and the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Billionaire Boys Club (Clothing Retailer) Clothing retailers of Japan Clothing retailers of the United States Hip hop fashion Clothing brands of Japan Clothing brands of the United States Clothing companies based in New York City Retail companies based in Tokyo Clothing companies established in 2005 Retail companies established in 2005 2005 establishments in New York City 2005 establishments in Japan Pharrell Williams Jay-Z 2000s fashion

History

Locations

See also

References

External links