ComplexCon held its third annual event last weekend (November 3-4, 2018) in Long Beach where the event was not surprisingly dominated by ComplexCon’s target, young male demographic.
While men’s offerings at the show dominate, it’s not lost on Complex that close to half of attendees are women and following its debut show in 2016, it’s made a sincere effort to bring more women into the fold.
One of the challenges is that there are simply not many indie women’s streetwear brands that can afford to show at the event. We were excited to see Melody Ehsani return for a second year plus debut show appearances by Kristen Noel Crawley with her KNC Beauty brand, Sami Miro who was showing a reimagined vintage line, Frankie Collective and Aggy, a new line created by Kilo Kish.
Part of the uber-popular Union booth included offerings from Bephie, a women’s streetwear line designed by store co-owner Elizabeth Gibbs. Dickies Girl and Urban Decay, which both have big corp backing, also had booths.
While not specifically owned by women, there were plenty of brands at the event exuding a female-friendly vibe like Guess, Kappa, Puma and Reebok, whose rotation of DJs included DJ Kelly Green and Vashtie.
In addition to women showing, there were two women’s panels: “Behind the Lens,” a panel highlighting women in the entertainment industry plus “Women & Streetwear.” We also spotted a booth featuring the work of Uzumaki Cepeda. There are no doubt women who were a part of the show that we missed, which is a good thing! That probably wouldn’t have been an issue in year one.
What’s on our wish list for next year? Definitely more female music performers (we only saw Tinashe in the lineup!) and a second top ten sneaker panel hosted entirely by women.
Check out some of the women we spotted at the event below.
