Streetwear Goes Full Liberace

In their bedazzled hoodies and crystal-embellished T-shirts, hype-driven shoppers may be the last true dandies left.

At Patron of the New, a TriBeCa boutique that is to rappers what REI is to hikers, you can shop by brand, or by size, or if you so choose, by sparkles. The store carries a constellation of crystal-embellished clothing: $1,250 vintage T-shirts from Bossi, with rhinestones tacked across the front, the aptly named Starry Night Flannel from the New York label Who Decides War, with petite gems a-twinkling all across it, and a $620 sweatshirt from the Los Angeles label Paly, with rhinestone stars studded on the chest.

“It gives it a little more oomph, feels a little more special,” said Jackson Ray, the store’s general manager, standing in front of rack stuffed with Bossi’s sparkling tees, which he said sell well. (A woman was trying one on as we spoke.)

“It’s elevated loungewear,” he said, nodding to the fact that rhinestones are landing not on women’s heels or the prim gala dresses where crystals have historically found a home, but on shrugged-on casual wear: tees, flannels and sweats.

“When you first think of Swarovski, you would think of women’s jewelry, you wouldn’t really think of diamond shorts, diamond shirts,” said Ayana Avery, 31, a postal worker from Cleveland, N.C. She does streetwear content creation on the side and owns a bevy of bedazzled gear, including kaleidoscopic flannels stippled with rhinestone sunbursts.

Dressing like a chandelier isn’t for everyone, but in some corridors of the fashion market, the quiet luxury trend is being snuffed out beneath a pair of Amiri $1,490 crystal sneakers.

“It’s a visible statement of your spending power and your taste level,” said Jian DeLeon, the men’s fashion director at Nordstrom, which stocks extravagant everyday pieces, including a $4,280 crystal-splayed Off-White hoodie and $995 calf-squelching crystaled jeans from Purple Denim.