5 Streetwear Brands Founded by Artists.

Date

16.03.23

Five streetwear brands born from the creativity of talented and visionary artists who, at a certain point in their careers, founded their own fashion label spreading their artistic language on sweatshirts, puffer jackets, trousers, tees and accessories.

From galleries to runway, these brands are a mix of art and fashion.

The marriage of art and fashion is a constant in the industry; a trend that started in the 1920s, when Elsa Schiaparelli asked her friend Salvador Dalì to create a collection halfway between art and fashion; in the same years, it was the turn of Yves Saint-Laurent who, running out of ideas, took inspiration from a Piet Modrian catalogue for one of his most iconic collections of just six garments, characterized by black lines and bright colour blocks.

Since that decade, the two arts have chased and caught up constantly, giving rise to collaborations, sometimes as unusual as they are ingenious; like the latest between Yayoi Kusama and Louis Vuitton.

Off-White and Jean-Michel Basquiat: a special capsule collection

Read also: “The Spectacular Louis Vuitton x Yayoi Kusama Visuals”

In this editorial, however, we will mention five streetwear brands born from the creativity of talented and visionary artists who, at a certain point in their careers in the world of visual art, founded their own fashion label, spreading their artistic language on sweatshirts, puffer jackets, trousers, tees and accessories.

Here are 5 Visual Artists who have founded a Streetwear brand.

Parra

Piet Parra has immolated his entire life to art.

Born in Amsterdam, the graphic designer and visual artist honed his career between art galleries and exhibitions of his paintings, all created with digital art, before entering the world of fashion.

His highly recognizable style ranges from saturated colours such as red, turquoise and grey to flat, soft figures, sometimes half-human and half-animal: bird-headed men, carnal, voluptuous women with round, sensual bodies, combined with a wide variety of texts and themes, from sarcastic and introspective to more ironic and daring to nonsensical.

Parra’s world is populated by hybrid, bizarre and surreal characters. If at first his art was popular in the independent scene, he soon became one of the most appreciated and in-demand illustrators worldwide; Streetwear brands such as Nike, Stussy and Thrasher entrusted Parra with the limited edition customization of their products, his hand illustrated important advertising campaigns and his work was exhibited in several solo exhibitions in Europe and the United States.

Until he founded his own brand Rockwell Clothing, which has continued under the Parra name since 2015.

Today, the Parra brand is one of the most loved streetwear brands, fusing his signature graphics with classic urban garments.

One of These Days

Matt McCormick is the artist behind the One of These Days brand.

McCormick’s art embodies the true spirit of America: seemingly incompatible elements coexist with ease, reflecting the contrasting histories of Western culture. A nostalgia for the American dream faded by utopia, which never lapses into “the way we were” rhetoric, rather it ridicules retroactive thinking, representing a “real” country, populated by the heroes of western comics. In 2019, he founded the streetwear brand with the intention of launching an artistic vision as unique and dynamic as the topography itself.

The graphics of One of These Days are inspired by the failure of the American dream, with Cowboys of the West no longer fighting Indians, but against consumerism and the disproportions between wealth and poverty in the United States.

One of the most interesting streetwear brands in today’s panorama, no doubt.

Discover our One of These Days Selection at blackbxostore.com

Kidsuper

Colm Dillane is a Brooklyn-based artist who took his first steps into the art world in his parents’ basement. Colm creates extremely colourful canvases that express a strong positive charge, where colourful figures also stand, intent on living their ordinary daily lives.

In 2012 he founded the brand Kidsuper, which soon became one of the world’s best-loved streetwear brands thanks to its unmistakable combination of oversized silhouettes, mood-boosting graphics, bold use of colour, and high-quality fabrics.

Discover our Kidsuper selection at blackboxstore.com

Brain Dead

Brain Dead is an underground collective of artists and designers, founded by Brian Dead and Kyle Ng in 2014, in California. Brain Dead’s peculiarity has always been to remain anonymous, letting only the works, always unconventional, speak for themselves.

Graphics, illustrations and works expressing the visionary delirium of the group of creatives who are part of it, which were then transferred to streetwear garments of the highest visual impact.

Obey Giant

Shepard Fairey is without doubt the world’s most famous street artist.
After experimenting with various forms of artistic expression, from stickers to prints to large stencils with which he has decorated walls around the world, he founded OBEY Clothing in 2001, a streetwear brand whose initial purpose is to support his activity in the artistic world.

The brand expresses the same values as his artistic work of political and anti-political activism, developing products mainly related to an urban style, incorporating propagandistic and provocative messages. His style, simple and based on chromatic impact, leads him to mix emblematic figures from history or cinema, with current themes: OBEY‘s faces, lettering and colours are always perfect, studied down to the smallest detail. Works meticulously designed and then displayed on large walls, like on a t-shirt.

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