Launched in 1990 on the premise of producing "clothes without prejudice," Cross COLOURS helped establish a fashion market based around African American youth culture-a novel approach at the time but one that would eventually become a staple of the fashion industry. The appeal of this clothing extends beyond "streetwear" companies such as FUBU and Mecca, to mainstream, traditionally white-associated companies such as Ralph Lauren, Nautica, and Tommy Hilfiger.

Cross COLOURS was the brainchild of Carl Jones, an entrepreneur who studied fashion at Otis Parson's School of Design and Trade Technical College in Los Angeles, then worked in various fashion enterprises before starting his own T-shirt company. He eventually started a company called Surf Fetish, which rode the wave of beachwear trends. He also hired Thomas Walker, a graphic designer who would eventually become vice president of Cross COLOURS. For Jones, Cross COLOURS was a way to broadcast political and social messages-such as denouncing gangs or calling for racial unity-to the African American community, and eventually other communities as the clothes' popularity spread. The label, whose baseball caps, baggy jeans, and message-bearing T-shirts were to prove enormously influential, also introduced such future designers as Karl Kani.

After one of its primary retailers went bankrupt in 1996, Cross COLOURS soon followed suit. Jones and Walker continue to design cutting-edge fashion, with one of their creations, Cyborg Millennium, incorporating such elements as URLs in clothes in an effort toward "unifying technology and fashion."