Enfants Riches Déprimés: the elitist punk label attracting retailers worldwide

By

Chenu Alexis

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Dec 19, 2016

The story of the Enfants Riches Déprimés ('depressed rich kids') label is that of Henry Levy, a 25 year-old, Los Angeles-based designer who has progressed "from rehab to rehab" since the age of 15. Levy studied art at UCLA and created his first tee-shirts drawing inspiration from meetings in rehab clinics, calling his label Enfants Riches Déprimés and giving it a strong punk rock vibe.

Levy's creations, spiced up by combining the label's logo with that of elite Swiss boarding school Le Rosey, or by adding anarchist imagery to the Hermès logo, soon began to be worn by celebrities like Korean rapper G-Dragon, actor Jared Leto and pop star Justin Bieber. They were then featured in the emerging designers section at British department store Brown's.

Levy himself, on the complex.com website, defined the label's style as "elitist, nihilist luxury”. In a couple of seasons and working from his Los Angeles atelier, Levy has created a line featuring leather jackets, Perfecto-style hand-painted jackets, sweatshirts emblazoned with Lou Reed pictures and shirts and tee-shirts featuring provocative printed slogans.

The brand's other mainstay is its very high price positioning, a result both of its limited edition approach and of a deliberate effort at exclusivity: the label's tee-shirts are priced from $300, sweatshirts and knitwear between $300 and $3,000, and shirts from $500.

This selective approach has not discouraged dealers: Enfants Riches Déprimés is distributed via 35 retail outlets worldwide, including Barney’s in New York, The Webster in Miami, Maxfield in Los Angeles and Excelsior in Milan. It is also available at about ten stores in Asia, chiefly in Japan and Korea.