As summertime winds down into the fall brisk, streetwear aficionados will be sure to pop out and show their best fits. Luckily, there’s a few Black-founded streetwear events to cater to their fashion needs. In Los Angeles, monthly affair Black Market Flea, often hosted at community hub The Beehive, hosts the finest Black-owned businesses specializing in style, beauty, and food – artists might even surprise guests with a performance set. Similarly, festival Black On The Block, which has roots in LA and Atlanta, brings out attendees seeking new threads, immersive pop-ups, and maybe a topical panel or two. Annual Brooklyn happening ENVSN Festival caters specifically to POC women and femmes, recognizing their contributions in the fashion, culture, and wellness spaces.
But while the aforementioned occasions have held it down for some time, the Ohio-originated Streetwear Flea and Atlanta-based Atlanta Streetwear Market are both nearly a decade in, and prove that Black-founded events are necessary for the streetwear industry to keep building. Marginally-owned businesses aren’t frequently given the tools to promote and uplift fellow creators, Streetwear Flea, founded by Sole Classics owner Dionte’ Johnson and multi-hyphenate creative and marketing strategist James ‘JD’ Drakeford, and Atlanta Streetwear Market, founded by entrepreneur Chris Peeples, operate on the intention of bringing community cultivation to the forefront.
Peeples, who began as a designer, launched Atlanta Streetwear Market in 2017, partly off the strength of his brand, Full Clip Global, but it was in November of that year when the biannual event started to catch traction. Seven years later, and approaching its fall 2024 installment, the streetwear convention doesn’t just have regional impact, but a global reputation.
“Since then, from 2017 to now, we’ve just amplified everything we’ve been doing,” Peeples tells UPROXX. [We’ve] just been really diligent on just trying to serve two sides of the coin; get tons of people that are looking for not just new clothes, but they want to connect with brands, they want to connect with community.”
But competition is stiff among even the most determined vendors, as Atlanta Streetwear Market makes the perfect space to meet those in micro-communities of photography, design, graphic design, and influencing. This year alone, the event attracted 4,000 vendor applicants. Peeples, who names CAVEMPT, Stone Island, and G-Star RAW as some of his closet staples, has a “global mission” for Atlanta Streetwear Market and reaches vendors with the same purpose.
“It’s kind of a mix; we pull applications for people that kind of meet the threshold, and we also have our own network, as well, from brands that we meet when we’re out and about,” he says. “Our thing is trying to do things on a national scale but make Atlanta a hub for that.”
With past visitors including artists Rubi Rose, Trinidad James, K Camp, and BMF alum Myles Truitt, Atlanta Streetwear Flea generates increased attention yearly as more than your usual shopping experience.
“It’s not a flea market, hell, it’s not even a pop-up, but a whole immersive experience that people that are coming, not just from Atlanta, but people are getting plane tickets to come shop,” Peeples explains. “[People are] waiting in line, wrapped around the building. For the back of the line, it takes 45 minutes to get in. Brands [have] waited two, three years to finally get accepted. It’s that serious.”
To summarize the excitement, “The Atlanta Streetwear Market is like a streetwear Disney World to our community,” says Peeples.
As for Streetwear Flea, which turns ten in 2025, the quarterly event has undergone a series of coast-to-coast transformations, launching in Columbus, Ohio before establishing sister spaces in New York and Austin. On the curation side, the adroit Drakeford directs each festival with a DIY mindset, inviting rising artists, brands and crafters to comingle and network.
“It started off more as a big closet sale. That’s kind of what inspired the whole event, like routine needs to offload shoes and clothing from my closet,” said Drakeford. “Then I was like, ‘I have a lot of friends that need to do the same thing. Let me put together an event where we can all come together and buy, sell, trade personal items from our collections.’ Then it turned into more up-and-coming brands and sneaker resellers and vintage dealers.”
But unlike streetwear conventions, which are traditionally a gathering point for hypebeasts and sneakerheads, Drakeford wanted diversity to be their selling point, with each vendor having their own niche.
“I noticed that people with the best collections weren’t actually selling; they were just displaying shoes and being exhibitors or just showing exhibitions,” he explains. So when I first created Streetwear Flea, that was one of the rules [for] the vendors is that everything that you bring and show is also available for sale.”
Streetwear Flea, which recently collaborated with ENVSN for the festival’s latest edition, looks to build Ohio’s fashion reputation on a worldwide scale, with Drakeford’s skill as organizer and curator serving as an aesthete into the local scene. Although the Dayton native is currently Harlem-based, his eye gives Streetwear Flea followers a look into the community that supports hometown brands like Made by NGO, General Public Streetwear, FriskMeGood, Small Victories, and Ransom Supply.
“There was already a scene in a culture there that I enjoy and I participated in, and that also helped make Streetwear Flea what it is today and what it is in Ohio,” he says. “Our first event was very different from what it looks like now and it was a little smaller, but, from what I remember, it was really good because that community was already there.”
He continues, “The only thing that I would say is missing from the scene is just respect. But we’re used to that in Ohio and the midwest in general; we don’t come from a major market city that gets a lot of eyes and attention for what we do. But also the presence of some of the major brands and the more popular designers and creators, but that’s also what makes Streetwear Flea in Ohio special is that it’s really made up of grassroots creators, brands and entrepreneurs.”
With Streetwear Flea hosting talk engagements from the likes of marketing strategist and influencer Bimma Williams and Midwest Kids founder Darryl Brown, it’s also gotten fanfare from current and past Ohio State Buckeyes, namely Ezekiel Elliott. While footwear line ASICS occasionally holds a booth at the Columbus location, in addition to streetwear, there’s purveyors whose focuses are tattoos and rugs–making Streetwear Flea a diverse shop. Through Johnson and Drakeford’s partnership at Sole Classics, which will have an Inglewood location this winter, Ohio was given the launchpad it needed to bring Streetwear Flea to life.
“I believe the culture is alive and well here, just like it is in most other places. When you compare it to New York or Chicago, LA, it’s a lot different,” says Johnson. “However, that gathering point of where people who share the same passions and ideas could actually be in front of each other, that was really missing.”
Through Drakeford’s curatorial lens and Johnson’s pulse on streetwear and sneaker culture, the latter has his attention on vendors with a knack for growth and professionalism, which shows in its assemblage of go-getters.
“I look for people who take it seriously, and then he turns it into who actually looks good and would look good next to certain people,” he says. “So we knew from day one that we didn’t want to have ten sneaker vendors because it looks like a sneaker show. My whole thing is just, I want people that are going to carry through on business. They’re going to have enough product. They’re going to show up on time.”
To the point of why streetwear events are an ongoing movement, Johnson explains, “We’re moving so quickly into this digital age where everybody wants stuff fast and on their phones, like, people are longing for that physical touch.”
It’s this yearning for seller-to-consumer connection that keeps streetwear events afloat, and allows shoppers to express their freely fashionable selves. If Peeples, Drakeford, and Johnson have taught us anything, it’s that Black expression will never go out of style.