Chinatown Market: How a Streetwear Brand Changed Its Name, Lost Itself, and Bought Itself Back
Chinatown Market is one of the few streetwear brands to change its name under public pressure, lose itself under new ownership, and then buy itself back to become the brand it started as. That full arc, name change and all, makes it one of the clearest lessons in modern streetwear about how fragile a brand name can be, and how much control is worth fighting to keep.
Founder Mike Cherman built the label from nothing in 2016. Almost a decade later, he is still the one steering it, but only after learning some expensive lessons along the way.
A Split-Second Name
Cherman launched the brand in 2016, wanting a name that reflected his New York City roots. His first choice, Canal Street Market, was already trademarked, so he settled on Chinatown Market instead, a decision he later described as split-second rather than carefully considered.
From Bootlegs to a Real Following
Early Chinatown Market leaned into bootleg-style graphics as both a design language and a wink at established brands. It worked. The label landed shelf space at Urban Outfitters and Zumiez, collaborated with the Grateful Dead, Lacoste, the NBA, and Mike Tyson, and built a recognizable smiley-face graphic into a genuine streetwear symbol. That trajectory reflects the same pattern seen in many brand name decisions made quickly at the start, decisions that only get scrutinized once a brand becomes big enough for people to notice.
When a Name Becomes a Liability
The name that once felt like a quick, harmless choice became a serious problem in late 2020, as a national rise in anti-Asian violence brought new scrutiny to brands seen as profiting off Asian culture without giving back to it.
The Case Against the Name
A Change.org petition gathered more than 3,000 signatures arguing that the concept of Chinatown was not a name for a non-Asian founder to profit from, especially given the brand’s bootleg-inspired roots. Designers Phillip Lim and Humberto Leon, along with the watchdog account Diet Prada, amplified the criticism publicly, turning what could have stayed a quiet internal debate into a widely covered story about community and who gets to profit from cultural identity.
Renaming Without Losing the Culture
In March 2021, Cherman publicly committed to changing the name and pledged to donate proceeds from remaining inventory to AAPI nonprofits. Rather than handling the rebrand internally, the team worked with Welcome to Chinatown, a Manhattan Chinatown preservation group co-founded by Vic Lee and Jennifer Tam, to guide the process.
By August 2021, the brand unveiled its new name: MA®KET, styled with a registered trademark symbol as a nod to the trademark problems that had shaped the brand’s naming from the very start. Cherman framed it less as a rebrand and more as recognizing who the brand had always been, a market of the internet and a market of the people, while continuing planned collaborations with names like Pokémon, Puma, and Tommy Hilfiger.
Losing the Plot Under Investors
The MA®KET era brought outside investors into the business, and by Cherman’s own account, that is where things started to slip. The brand has since admitted it lost its essence once what it called “the money guys” took a larger role in decisions, pulling the label away from the DIY roots that built its original following.
This is a familiar tension in business models for culture-driven brands: outside capital can fund faster growth, but it can also dilute the exact creative instincts that made the brand worth investing in to begin with.
Buying Itself Back
According to Complex, Cherman and his team recently bought the company back from its former investors, dropped the MA®KET name, and reverted to Chinatown Market, bringing back the original smiley-face graphic that built the brand’s cult following in the first place.
The move closes a highly public chapter that touched on race, branding, and accountability in streetwear, and it shows a founder deciding that regaining creative control was worth the cost and complexity of unwinding an investor relationship entirely.
What Independent Brands Can Learn From Chinatown Market
Chinatown Market shows how much weight a brand name carries long after it is chosen. A split-second decision made in a founder’s earliest days can eventually require a public reckoning once the brand has millions of eyes on it, which makes early research into a name’s cultural and legal implications far cheaper than fixing it later.
The second lesson is about how a brand responds under pressure. Rather than resisting the criticism, Cherman worked directly with a relevant community organization to guide the process, which likely preserved more trust than a defensive response would have. The third lesson is the most sobering: growth and outside capital do not automatically preserve what made a brand distinctive, and sometimes the only way back is admitting a mistake and buying back control at real cost.
Frequently Asked Questions about Chinatown Market
Mike Cherman founded Chinatown Market in 2016 in Los Angeles. He originally wanted to call it Canal Street Market, but that name was already trademarked, so he chose Chinatown Market instead.
The brand faced significant backlash starting in late 2020 over its name, amid a rise in anti-Asian violence and criticism that a non-Asian founder was profiting from the Chinatown name. It officially rebranded to MA®KET in August 2021.
No. The brand recently bought itself back from its former investors and reverted to its original name, Chinatown Market, bringing back its original smiley-face graphic and DIY identity.
The brand worked with Welcome to Chinatown, a Manhattan Chinatown preservation group co-founded by Vic Lee and Jennifer Tam, to help guide the renaming process in 2021.
According to the brand, it lost its creative essence once outside investors took a larger role in decisions during the MA®KET era. Buying the company back let founder Mike Cherman regain full control of the brand’s direction.
