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Photos by Ariana Gastelum.<\/em><\/p>\n Tens of thousands of fans gathered to attend the second annual ComplexCon that took place at the Long Beach Convention Center on November 4 and 5, a weekend filled with surprise celebrity appearances and exclusive merchandise.<\/p>\n On Saturday, G-Star revealed the new G-Star Raw suit with Pharrell, Pusha T revealed his latest collaboration with Adidas, and Virgil Abloh and Takashi Murakami screen-printed T-shirts for fans.<\/p>\n Wale took on and conquered the Hot Ones challenge with Sean Evans, biting into wings with 10 levels of spiciness and not even breaking a sweat. Out of the approximate 100 times he\u2019s hosted, only one to two other people have managed to stay as composed as Wale throughout the interview, Evans said.<\/p>\n Additionally, the first 100 attendees also got to experience wings coated with \u201cThe Last Dab\u201d sauce for the first time ever.<\/p>\n Other appearances included Big Sean, Lavar and Lonzo Ball, Chad \u201cOcho Cinco\u201d Johnson, Riff Raff, Wiz Khalifa, Andr\u00e9 3000, Rich the Kid, Pusha T, Ty Dolla $ign, Travis Barker, Erik Koston and Rotimi.<\/p>\n On Sunday, Kobe Bryant and Kendrick Lamar took over the Nike court and discussed how basketball and music influenced their lives, DJ Khaled brought out G-Easy to introduce a new song and pass out boxes of Air Jordans to the crowd, and Steve Aoki screen-printed T-shirts at the Dim Mak booth.<\/p>\n Usher, Travis Barker, 2 Chainz, Michael B. Jordan, Victor Cruz and Rei Kwakubo shopped around in the evening.<\/p>\n On top of all this excitement, attendees had the opportunity to listen to ComplexCon(versations), a series of panels that dissected artistic motives. Two of these panels that took place on Day 1 were called \u201cDrop Science\u201d and \u201cHype East.\u201d<\/p>\n Drop Science<\/strong><\/p>\n Limited supply, high demand products, designed to drive consumer excitement and generate overnight lines in front of its stores, are commonly known as drops. Hosts Karizza Sanchez and Chris Gibbs, owner of Union, joined with fashion architects and influencers to analyze what makes something \u201cdrop-worthy.\u201d<\/p>\n These matters were discussed among Kevin Le from BAPE; Deon Point, general manager of Concepts; Jerry Lorenzo, founder of Fear of God; Racks Hogan and A$AP Ferg, who has collaborated with Adidas footwear and apparel skateboard collection and partners with Los Angeles denim brand AGOLDE.<\/p>\n Gibbs educated the crowd on the definition and the history of the drop, which was started in Japanese retail and first adopted in the US by Supreme.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we are talking about drop, it\u2019s important to know \u2018A,\u2019 the history [\u2026], and then \u2018B,\u2019 that it\u2019s typically something coming from a brand that has its own store, so they can keep people coming back,\u201d he said during the panel.<\/p>\n A$AP Ferg admitted to camping out for two days to buy Kanye\u2019s Nike Air Yeezy sneakers at a Brooklyn Jimmy Jazz store, but he was unsuccessful.<\/p>\n Since not everyone is able or willing to wait hours in line, a new business has formed where people are buying merchandise to resell at their own prices. Hogan, who\u2019s profited from this method, explained his process to finding, obtaining and reselling these products.<\/p>\n He said he looks on social media to find out what people want and how limited it is. He admitted that one time, he earned $1,900 for an item originally worth $35.<\/p>\n \u201cI got what I call fair tax, where it\u2019s enough money for me to feel comfortable going down there, if I had to freeze my ass off, if I had to jump over somebody\u2019s back, if I had to huddle up on some dude with B.O. all night,\u201d he said. \u201cWhatever I went through that day, I\u2019m going to justify my price in charging you for that.\u201d<\/p>\n The panel agreed that reselling hasn\u2019t negatively affected the selling of their merchandise. In a way, it\u2019s an investment for resellers to profit and then buy something they really want, Gibbs noted.<\/p>\n \u201cWe understand that reselling is always going to be a thing because it doesn\u2019t only apply to street wear,\u201d Le said. \u201cIt applies to everything. You could sell tickets. You could sell small goods \u2013 anything you want. We do listen to what resellers want to say, but we don\u2019t necessarily follow it. It just gives us insight on what people like.\u201d<\/p>\n Bradford Shellhammer, eBay\u2019s head of curation and merchandising, gave away a custom pair of eBay-colored Nike shoes worth $30,000 to a lucky audience member with a golden ticket under her chair.<\/p>\n Hype East<\/strong><\/p>\n Though streetwear emerged through American skate and surf subcultures in the 1980s, Japanese fashion lines adopted it using punk, military and vintage inspiration, resulting in a street wear revolution.<\/p>\n Host Chris Gibbs joined with street wear influencers Takashi Murakami, Japanese contemporary artist; Hiroshi Fujiwara, Japanese designer; Don C, founder of Just Don; and Yoon Ahn, founder of Ambush, to reflect on the relationship between these two cultures.<\/p>\n Fujiwara noted that, when he was initially influenced by American streetwear, he didn\u2019t think about the rules behind what to wear to be considered punk, skater or disco. So, they didn\u2019t restrict his ideas in constructing Japanese street wear. When Murakami was asked about what American culture inspired his creations, he answered Star Wars.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery culture is coming together. We don\u2019t have to think so much about those categories. So, like, maybe you can put punk rock and KKK in one bowl,\u201d Fujiwara said jokingly. \u201cIn Japanese, we don\u2019t really know.\u201d<\/p>\n Don C admitted that his work is heavily inspired by the Japanese approach to streetwear.<\/p>\n \u201cWe feel like you guys took our culture, made it cooler and gave it back to us,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes, I try to take things from original Japanese culture and flip it, [\u2026]like what you do with American culture, but it just doesn\u2019t work the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Towards the end of the discussion, Gibbs allowed audience members the opportunity to ask their own questions. Topics included how to prevent selling out as well as why there is a disconnection between feminine American and Japanese fashion.<\/p>\n Ahn concluded the discussion with her take on the future of streetwear fashion.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the Internet, now, you can see what\u2019s going on, on time like in Paris, London, New York,\u201d she said. \u201cI almost feel like the world is becoming closer and closer. It doesn\u2019t feel like different countries. It feels like different cities\u2026It\u2019s hard to say where it\u2019s going in the future because everything is kind of merging. But it\u2019s an interesting time. [\u2026]We have to stick with what we want to do, and I think that\u2019s the only way it\u2019s going to get defined much more.\u201d<\/p>\n {gallery}asia\/arianacomplexcon{\/gallery}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tens of thousands of fans gathered to attend the second annual ComplexCon that took place at the Long Beach Convention Center on November 4 and 5, a weekend filled with surprise celebrity appearances and exclusive merchandise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":263,"featured_media":66575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[357],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[11069],"class_list":["post-1110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","tag-complexcon","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/263"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1110"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=1110"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"DSC](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/DSC_0705.jpg\")
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