ALICE HOLLYWOOD'S SS27 IS SHANE GONZALES' SECOND ACT

Camouflage hoodies, ornamented belts, and distressed leather. Shane Gonzales built Alice Hollywood's SS27 lookbook, titled I Know How This Ends, out of the closet of a specific kind of American teenager, the one raised on skate videos, punk shows, and a Y2K nostalgia shot like a memory instead of a season.

This is Gonzales' second label, not his first. He spent a decade building Midnight Studios into an LA cult favorite before shutting it down and starting over as Alice Hollywood, and I Know How This Ends is the clearest evidence yet that the reset was a creative decision, not a rebrand for its own sake.

Shane Gonzales Left Midnight Studios to Build This

Gonzales ran Midnight Studios for roughly ten years, turning it into one of Los Angeles' cult favorite labels before closing it to launch Alice Hollywood. He calls the new label hardcore haute couture, a phrase that reads like a joke until the SS27 lookbook explains it.

Alice Hollywood photographs like a scrapbook of Southern California punk and skate culture run through a cut and sew workshop instead of a screen printer. Jason Renaud shot the SS27 images and Gonzales styled the collection himself, the same hands on approach that defined his run at Midnight Studios.

Independent designers reopening or relaunching under their own name is a pattern this summer, not a one off. Our Legacy reopened its Soho flagship the same week, betting on the same idea Gonzales is testing with Alice Hollywood: that an independent name still means something when a designer controls it directly instead of renting it to a bigger house.

The Collection Runs on Military, Sportswear, and Distressed Leather

I Know How This Ends merges military references, sportswear silhouettes, leather, and distressed construction into a single lookbook, according to the brand's own SS27 rollout. Oversized graphic tees, ornamented belts, and camouflage hoodies carry the load, built to look worn in before they ever leave the rack.

That distressed finish is not a shortcut. Gonzales built his reputation at Midnight Studios on hand treated denim and construction that photographed differently under every light, and the metal hardware and deconstructed panels running through this collection read as a continuation of that same obsession, not a new trick learned overnight.

A$AP Rocky Already Wore This Before It Had a Runway

A$AP Rocky has already worn Alice Hollywood publicly, giving the label a celebrity cosign before it even had a full retail rollout. Finally Offline covered Navy Blue's Stone Island vinyl release the same week, another case of hip hop culture validating a fashion release before the price tags are even printed.

Gonzales has also run a collaboration with Ksubi, stacking proof points onto a label that is barely a year old. A cosign from Rocky and a Ksubi tie up in the same stretch of time is not luck. It is what happens when a designer with a decade of credibility launches a second act instead of a debut.

Three Collaborations Are Confirmed. Zero Prices Are.

Alice Hollywood has announced upcoming collaborations with Saint Mxxx, Denim Tears, and Thug Club, stacking three partnerships on top of an SS27 collection that has not published a single retail price yet. That gap matters. A lookbook can sell a mood. Only a price tag tells you if the mood is worth owning.

Brain Dead's approach to keeping small drops exclusive to single cities is the same instinct at a different scale, treating scarcity as part of the design instead of an afterthought. Alice Hollywood is playing that game with an entire collection instead of a keychain.

Denim Tears alone raises the stakes on that list. Tremaine Emory built the label around the cotton wreath print and a direct line to American labor history, and a brand that has worked with Levi's and Converse does not sign onto a partnership lightly. Saint Mxxx and Thug Club carry less name recognition today, but pairing a proven archival storyteller with two newer names is how a young label borrows credibility while it builds its own.

Early. Worth the Watch, Not the Wallet Yet.

Alice Hollywood is early, and that is the right temperature for a label built on a designer's decade of credibility rather than a debut collection with no track record. The Midnight Studios pedigree, the Rocky cosign, and three stacked collaborations are real signals. A published price is not one of them yet.

Watch this one before you buy it. When Denim Tears, Saint Mxxx, and Thug Club actually land, and when I Know How This Ends gets a price list, that is the moment to decide whether hardcore haute couture is worth the couture part of the price.