Kim Kardashian wore it to the 2025 Met Gala. Lauren Sánchez once bought one of its bracelets for Jeff Bezos. Karl Lagerfeld owned its ebony wood toilet plunger. And the late great André Leon Talley used to wear it.

Charli XCX and Yungblud both wore it to the Grammys Sunday night, but its more famous red carpet moment of late involved Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner embracing for the cameras in its matching orange leather looks at that Marty Supreme premiere.

Yet, like The Row, its Instagram grid features none of these moments. And its founder, also like the Olsens, errs on the side of not talking to the press.

The brand is Chrome Hearts. It’s known vaguely to many as sort of an upscale Ed Hardy for the Kardashian-Jenners and their acolytes and has been called a “social experiment for rich people.” Yes, it’s unapologetically tacky (just get a load of these “stencil socks”) and expensive (the leather pieces can run into the five figures).

But while the brand appears to make overpriced ephemera for people who don’t have enough ways to part with their overabundance of money, it has has attained lasting credibility and respect in the high fashion world. Its biker aesthetic may be the opposite of the minimalism sanctioned as tasteful and timeless by The Row stans. But Chrome Hearts offers a different idea of timelessness — a tacky one. It makes the leather, studded, gothic, biker stuff that a certain demo (and lots of celebrities) will always want.

Chrome Hearts’s founders never seemed to aspire to be part of the industry proper. They weren’t attending cocktail parties at Anna Wintour’s townhouse or putting on fashion shows or holding out hope for design gigs in Paris. When the Council of Fashion Designers of America called to tell them they were winning the 1992 award for accessories design (fashion’s Oscars, basically) the founders thought they were telemarketers.

To get away with doing things differently, your work has to be good. And industry veterans are still quick to sing Chrome Hearts’s praises. Because no matter what you think of its aesthetic, it makes things that fashion people agree are, well, luxurious.

“It's the only American artisanal brand,” said Eugene Rabkin, editor-in-chief of Style Zeitgeist who selected the Chrome Hearts Los Angeles boutique for his 2021 High Snobiety story about “store interiors that changed fashion forever.” “Everything is made in downtown Los Angeles. Everything is pure silver, nothing is plated. They use the best materials. This is true luxury, in terms of how they make things.” He noted that the brand is known for lining leather jackets in vintage Hermès scarves. “I mean, that's pretty ballsy.”

Chrome Hearts began in a Los Angeles garage in 1988, when Richard Stark and John Bowman decided to make motorcycle jackets because they didn’t like the available options. Bowman had made belts before and got the raw leather from Stark; they then hooked up with Leonard Kamhout, who worked with silver. Their pieces quickly gained a rock star following, including Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols.

“We’re not looking to supply the mass market — ever,” Stark said. “We like doing musicians. We live the same lives — you know — ‘ride hard, die free.’” 

Chrome Hearts earned Anna Wintour’s approval early. In the early nineties, it started appearing regularly in Vogue, including in the famous September 1991 “Wild at Heart” spread styled by Grace Coddington and photographed by Peter Lindbergh, featuring supermodels wearing leather and jewelry weighty enough to kill a small animal. Both Helena Christensen and Linda Evangelista wore Chrome Hearts in the editorial. In that same issue, Vogue lavished praise on the brand, calling it “Hollywood’s house of couture leather,” describing its quality as “extraordinary,” and noting “all the hardware — grommets, buttons, logos — is of hand-cast sterling silver.” At the time, prices ranged from $975 (about $2,300 today) for a “basic vest,” per Vogue, to “$2,500 [about $6,000 today] and the sky for a jacket.”

The press piled on. A 1991 profile in trade publication DNR included a frantic scene at Chrome Hearts’ headquarters where they were busy spending the day making a custom outfit for Cher in both suede and leather, because she called and asked for it that morning but hadn’t decided which material she wanted to wear. 

In a 1993 Harper’s Bazaar profile, Stark said, “The only company we really relate to is Hermès.” The comparison isn’t insane — both brands are known for their pieces being handmade and artisanal, which very little of mass-produced high fashion, with its myriad modern sweatshop scandals, truly is.

In 1994, Stark and his founders had a falling out, and he and his wife Laurie Lynn retained ownership of the brand, which exploded in popularity in Japan. Comme des Garçons designer Rei Kawakubo put it in her flagship store in the ’90s and later collaborated with Chrome Hearts on a line in 2007.

The brand experimented briefly with wholesale, but then opened its own stores, now counting more than 30 around the world in places like St. Barts, Aspen, and Las Vegas. Lagerfeld, who festooned his fingers with chunky Chrome Hearts rings in his later years, was a big fan. “Though he was reputed to own hundreds of belts, in his final decade Lagerfeld was rarely seen in public without a diamond-encrusted Chrome Hearts ‘Gunslinger’ buckle on his waist,” reported GQ. He would go to the New York store on East 64th Street beginning in the late ’90s where he’d sit in the garden and drink Diet Coke and, according to Laurie Lynn, tell the staff, “You’re the only real brand around.” (No wonder he ended up owning the plunger.)

The Starks still don’t do many interviews and seem to do red carpet selectively. The strategy is working. In 1994, Richard would joke, “We don’t do things to lose money because we’ve got no money to lose.” But the brand is clearly doing well — it recently bought the Surfrider Hotel in Malibu for $37.5 million.

Chrome Hearts does not disclose revenue but does a robust business with private clients (“it fully customized the rapper Drake’s Rolls-Royce down to a triple-cross hood ornament, sterling silver A/C knob and aluminum iron cross rims,” reported the Wall Street Journal in 2021). Vogue got to talk to Richard in 2022, though the magazine said his participation in the story was “no sure thing.”

“[Chrome Hearts is] kind of heart-driven. It’s not money-driven,” he said on the FaceTime call. “I’m not going to make bathroom slippers for hotels in Asia just because I could make a fucking fortune.” He has consistently said he is building the brand for his children.

Chrome Hearts is perfect for fashion’s current opulent, eighties-ish mood. And it maintains its IYKYK quality by eschewing proper fashion stuff like fashion week, endless brand collaborations, and steady influencer placements. 

“I love the idea that it's an American artisanal brand. I find aesthetic tacky. I would never ever buy it,” said Rabkin. “I respect it a lot.”