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\n\tEarlier this week, Supreme<\/a> announced an Elliott Smith<\/a> capsule collection, including a selection of jackets and T-shirts featuring artwork from across the late musician\u2019s career, from his self-titled 1995 album to his seminal 1997 album Either\/Or<\/em> to 1998\u2019s XO<\/em> and 2000\u2019s Figure 8<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tThe internet seems to be in a huff over this, relying on a view of Supreme and streetwear frozen in 2008 that was, even then, embarrassingly myopic. The line of thinking goes that Supreme, the brand that was founded in New York in 1994 by designer James Jebbia and that has been a staple in skate and streetwear culture ever since, is an inauthentic purveyor of the ethos represented by Smith and his music. One might cite the brand\u2019s roughly $500 million investment<\/a> from the Carlyle Group in 2017 or its association with high fashion<\/a> as disqualifying characteristics. More than anything, there seems to be a sense that taking shots at a nearly 40-year-old streetwear institution is a way to prove one\u2019s unsullied dedication to a sense of anti-consumerism. The anger is misplaced.<\/p>\n \n\tIn a culture awash in goofy collaborations and corporate cash grabs, Supreme might be one of the few brands still operating from an actual set of beliefs. Its Elliott Smith capsule (which was made with permission from Smith\u2019s estate) is in a long line of collaborations that Supreme has done with musicians. Its first artist collaborator was Rammellzee, the experimental rapper and visual artist whose relationship with the brand dates to 1994<\/a>, the year Supreme opened. By 2005, Raekwon was posing with a Tickle Me Elmo for the first of Supreme\u2019s commissioned portrait T-shirts<\/a>. Across its music collaborations, portrait tees, and tributes, the list includes everyone from Michael Jackson to the Velvet Underground, Nirvana, Butthole Surfers, My Bloody Valentine, Daniel Johnston, Aphex Twin, and SALEM.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThere have been collections with record labels like Stax<\/a>, Wackies<\/a>, Rap-A-Lot, Ruff Ryders<\/a>, Jah Life, and Duck Down<\/a>, the last of which put Black Moon and Smif-N-Wessun\u2019s album artwork on clothes. There are shirts and shoes with Peter Saville\u2019s artwork<\/a> for Joy Division and New Order. The Smith collaboration is so patently in the wheelhouse of what the brand has done for decades that bringing it up now as some sort of \u201cgotcha!\u201d feels more like a product of social media\u2019s tilt towards rage-bait than any defense of an artist.<\/p>\n