Your best bet to figure out what the brand is making at any given time, and to get your hands on it, is to go to a Chrome Hearts retail store-if you can find one. The company is one of few in the luxury sector without a permanent e-commerce shop, and it doesn’t advertise or publish collection images on its website. It’s also not particularly easy to buy Chrome Hearts. Why? Zack Bia, the 25-year-old DJ, Drake consigliere, and friend of Kristian, puts it this way: “Chrome Hearts is one of the greatest brands on earth.” When Drake bought a new Rolls-Royce Cullinan, he called on Chrome Hearts to redesign it down to the leather floor mats. caught his first postseason touchdown pass during the 2022 NFL playoffs, he did so wearing Nike wide receiver gloves emblazoned with blue-and-yellow-leather biker crosses, an unofficial collab executed in Chrome Hearts’ Hollywood atelier. Many are led by 18-year-old Kristian Stark, who introduced Chrome Hearts to the likes of Young Thug and Lil Uzi Vert, like his parents introduced the brand to the Sex Pistols and Guns N’ Roses. We wanted to be successful artists,” says Laurie Lynn, who says her kids freaked out when Drake name-dropped her in a song.” Celebrities, in turn, come to the Starks to realize their most over-the-top and luxurious flexes. Though it was never part of the plan, Richard, Laurie Lynn, and their three children have become fashion-world celebrities.

“I thought, Who is this crazy guy? I’ve never heard of him, and he wants $5,000 for a guitar strap?” The only problem? Stark wanted $5,000, about double what an Hermès Birkin cost at the time. “And some weird guy comes in, all leathered out, and he had a guitar strap with him.” The guitar strap, Cher says, was gorgeous: thick black leather, with baroque silver-filigree work. “We were in a rehearsal hall,” Cher recalls by phone.

Stark would soon become one of the most influential celebrity clothiers of his time, but in 1988, in that studio with Cher, only he knew it. Suddenly, a Chrome Hearts jacket would not only save your ass if you crashed your Harley but it might also get you a table at Spago. Thanks to a friend who worked in fashion production, the jackets were beautifully made, but the real breakthrough came when Stark and a jeweler added custom silver hardware-sterling studs, zipper pulls, and biker cross embellishments. Through his job working with tanneries, he had access to superthick hides normally used in upholstery, so he’d been tooling around in his Hollywood garage for a few years, making sturdy jackets he and his buddies would wear on their bikes.

There were plenty of brands selling heavy-metal motorcycle jackets and rocker jewelry in those days, but Stark, a headstrong and clever leather wholesaler from Utica, New York, had a more luxurious vision for the genre. Richard Stark had recently started a brand called Chrome Hearts, which made jewelry, clothes, and accessories for bikers and rock stars, and he was doing the old-school version of influencer marketing: riding his Harley around town and seeing if famous people would buy his gear. One afternoon in 1988, Cher was rehearsing in a Los Angeles recording studio when a guy with wild, curly hair and a stern face dropped by.

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