JNCO arrived on earth even before
the glowstick toting population of candy-kid ravers emerged. The clothing brand starting making oversized hoodies and baggie pants in the late eighties. Their tendency to use designs depicting a seemingly urban feel and glorifying such concepts as
graffitti,
drinking,
rhyming and stealing and the like made them the outfitters of choice for early
hip hoppers.
At some point in the early nineties JNCO apparel seemed to become less of a small
counter-culture indicator and more of a
characature of itself, so it faded away into the depths of obscurity, only making the occasional appearance on the racks of the
marietta stores in
suburban shopping malls. There were those of us who kept our eye out for the rare piece of delectible
old-skool JNCO clothing in
thrift stores, but to no avail. I did check out their website at some point during this era and was slightly interested in their new line of sneakers with colorful comic-y/graf-character imagery on the soles, but not enough to actually purchase them. It was obvious I had outgrown the flashy sentiments still being over-expressed by the brand.
Meanwhile,
somewhere in the mid to late nineties, the '
raves' that had once been
underground parties in
urban lofts started to evolve into weekend-long extravaganzas of young dance and
drug culture, and with them spawned a whole code of specific actions, tendencies, and style that seemed to help define said culture. Somehow JNCO's colorful designs and
over-sized clothing found its place again, this time amidst the
uniform of this new breed of '
ravers' and thus secured the synonimity of its name with this culture; as described by
slawz.