A new archival auction from Wax Poetics opens today, unveiling three decades of unseen Wu-Tang Clan design history — from a one-of-four prototype alloy wheel made for Raekwon’s BMW X5 to unreleased Wu Wear jackets and skate decks from the group’s golden era.
If you’ve ever wondered how a Staten Island streetwear label grew into one of the most influential artist brands in music, Shaolin Style: The Duane Grant Archive is about to show you the receipts. The auction, which opens today! Wednesday, August 26 and runs through Monday, September 14, 2026, draws entirely from the personal collection of designer and entrepreneur Duane Grant, the man who — alongside his late cousin, Oliver “Power” Grant — helped build Wu Wear from a box of hoodies into a full-blown lifestyle brand.
The Star Lot: Raekwon’s One-of-Four BMW X5 Wheel
Leading the auction is a genuinely wild piece of hip-hop ephemera: a 20-inch prototype alloy wheel, one of only four ever made, built in 2000 for Wu-Tang Wheels — a planned (and ultimately shelved) collaboration between Wu-Tang’s business circle and Raceline Wheels/Allied Wheel Components.
Fitted to Raekwon’s BMW X5 and shot for promotional photography at the peak of early-2000s custom rim culture, the wheel is centred around the Wu-Tang “W” logo. The wheel deal never made it to market, which makes this prototype a rare artifact of an ambitious, unrealised bid to plant the Wu logo on car culture too.
It gets better: the wheel was signed backstage in 2025 by Raekwon, RZA, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, Inspectah Deck, U-God and Masta Killa, with additional signatures from Cappadonna, Mathematics, Mitchell “Divine” Diggs and Loud Records founder Steve Rifkind. It’s offered alongside a unique promotional poster of Raekwon and U-God posing with the X5.
“This is the original rim prototype that we did when we started the partnership,” Grant said. “This is the actual prototype that we put on Rae’s X5 for the rollout. It was set for the BMW X5, because that was the hot truck back then in 2000.”
From Hanes Hoodies to Macy’s Windows: The Wu Wear Origin Story
Grant was just 18 when Power brought him in to help build merchandise for the emerging Wu-Tang movement. The earliest pieces were nothing more than plain Hanes hoodies with “W” stickers stuck on, handed out around Staten Island to get the logo into the streets.
That scrappy start grew into Wu Wear, the pioneering apparel label and Staten Island retail store launched in the mid-1990s. What began as locally printed T-shirts and hoodies expanded into cut-and-sew apparel, denim, outerwear and the brand’s signature velour suits — eventually earning a window presentation at Macy’s flagship store on 34th Street, spearheaded by Cynamin Jones, who became the backbone of Wu Wear.
“When we first saw the ‘W,’ we knew it was something,” Grant recalls. “We knew we could do something with this. We could start a movement.”
It’s a genuinely important lineage for anyone interested in music and streetwear history — Wu Wear helped prove that an artist-led brand could be something far bigger than tour merch, laying groundwork for the artist-brand model that dominates music marketing today.
Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style Jackets — From the PlayStation Game That Started It All
Two of the auction’s standout lots are artist-only jackets made in 2024 to mark the 25th anniversary of Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style, the 1999 PlayStation fighting game co-executive produced by Duane and Power for Activision. Building the game meant getting sign-off from all nine core members on their character design, fighting style and special moves — a rare level of creative control for a licensed video game at the time.
- Duane Grant’s personal “Executive Producer” edition — goat suede, chenille Wu-Tang insignia, custom satin lining and nods to the original PlayStation controller. One of only two jackets with “Executive Producer” embroidery, offered with an original four-page Activision royalty statement dated August 15, 2001.
- Raekwon’s unworn “Chef” edition — Merino wool and Italian leather, featuring his signature “R” emblem, “Chef” embroidery, a chenille Killer Bee insignia and references to the 1999 game. The only edition of its kind, and never sold commercially.
Skate Decks That Bridge Wu-Tang and 90s Skate Culture
The archive also captures Wu-Tang’s early ties to skateboarding during the golden era of 1990s New York hip-hop:
- A limited-edition 2001–02 Vision Street Wear deck featuring a black-and-white Raekwon silhouette lifted from the back cover of The W (2000), complete with a set of branded 52mm wheels — only 25 sets were made and never sold commercially. Chad Muska rode the deck at a 2002 demo before he and Raekwon both signed it, a friendship that later led to Raekwon and U-God appearing on Muska’s 2003 album Muskabeatz.
- A 1997 Wu-Tang Hard Good Company “Spotlight” deck, one of only 150 produced, with comic-book-style artwork of the “W” projected over a pre-9/11 New York skyline — Twin Towers included. It’s as much a time capsule of the city as it is of the brand.
Also in the Collection: REZIN x WU WORLD Glasses
Rounding out the featured lots is a pair of handmade REZIN x WU WORLD wooden glasses, made exclusively for Wu-Tang members and their inner circle around 2013–14. Never released commercially, they still come with their suede-lined cork case and original presentation box. Further pieces from Grant’s archive will be released across the full auction.
Why This Archive Matters
Wax Poetics’ Chief Brand Officer, David Holt, put it simply: the collection shows “the breadth, ambition and smart cultural thinking behind the Wu brand” — and how naturally it moved from gaming to skate to fashion and beyond, long before most brands figured out how to do that at all.
It’s a fitting follow-up for Wax Poetics, which has previously auctioned material from Mariah Carey, Tupac and Coldplay, alongside archives from Ge-ology, Arthur Baker, Jimmy Douglass, Chris Allison, Bootsy Collins and Louie Vega.
The auction is live now at waxpoetics.com/collections/shaolin-style, running from 9 AM ET on August 26 through 3 PM ET on September 14, 2026. Wax Poetics has also published a companion interview with Duane Grant on Wu Wear’s origins and the brand’s journey from Staten Island’s Victory Boulevard to Manhattan’s Fashion Avenue.
