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Sean “Diddy” Combs is ready to bring Y2K fashion back to the main stage as the majority owner of the mens fashion brand he started, Sean John. The artist and businessman founded the Sean John”clothing brand in 1998 but sold a majority of stake in the company in 2016. However, the company that acquired it, Global Brands Group Holding Lt. (GBG) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July, putting its assets like Sean John up for auction. But Diddy wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to buy his iconic brand back, and he won the auction with a $7.551 million cash bid, per Forbes.
Diddy’s backed SLC Fashion LLC was behind the winning bit and it barely beat United Ventures LLC’s $7.50 million cash offer. Combs told Forbes, he was ready to write the next chapter of Sean John’s legacy. “I launched Sean John in 1998 with the goal of building a premium brand that shattered tradition and introduced Hip Hop to high-fashion on a global scale. Seeing how streetwear has evolved to rewrite the rules of fashion and impact culture across categories, I’m ready to reclaim ownership of the brand, build a team of visionary designers and global partners to write the next chapter of Sean John’s legacy,” he said in a written statement.
The downfall for GBG and Sean John seemed to have started earlier this year when the artist sued the company for $25 million for “false endorsement, misappropriation of likeness and violating his publicity rights.” According to WWD, it was due to the launch last fall of a women’s collection with U.K. fast-fashion retailer Missguided Unlimited. A few days later his nonprofit, Citizen Change got in on the action and sued GBG for their use of their trademark-owned phrase “Vote or Die.”
The Sean John brand peaked in the 2000s as artists like Jennifer Lopez and Nelly rocked the baggy, and velour clothes that became a staple in hip hop culture. It was the first company to reflect the aesthetic. “We wanted to give them fashion that represents them. We wanted to give them extremely multicultural and diverse fashion,” Combs told The Washington Post in 2016. “We brought them fashion-statement.”
Diddy put up million-dollar runway productions that attracted fashion top editors, models, and other designers. Although he never went to design school, Diddy won the highly-coveted CFDA‘s 2004 menswear designer of the year, which usually went to designers like Tom Ford and Michael Kors.