The new Levi’s Collaboration with Shepard Fairy debut’s today. Shepard Fairy for those of you that are unfamiliar is wildly known for the production of the Obama “Hope” posters. His “Andre the Giant has a posse” campaign in wilting years of the 1980′s inspired the OBEY propaganda that is now teaming up with Levi’s for a special collaboration.
This collection is very young and is targeting the 18-24 demographic that was explained to me by Gareth Hornberger, when we were chatting about social media. The collection is art by Shepard Fairy, in the form of clothing. A t-shirt is printed with the OBEY GIANT modified to fit in the Levi’s Batwing. The trucker jacket has one of the collaboration posters on the inside lining. The collection looks as if it were a harmonous relationship and appears as if neither OBEY or Levi’s had to sacrifice any of its ideals in the formation of this collection.
I think this collaboration is interesting that Levi’s teamed up with Fairy especially with the Go Forth campaign going on. I didn’t understand since I wasn’t too familiar with Fairy and thought much of his art was an underground defiance of our contemporary society. Then I came across this on the OBEY website:
The sticker has no meaning but exists only to cause people to react, to contemplate and search for meaning in the sticker. -Shepard Fairy, 1990 (Whole piece here)
I think this fits in closely with Levi’s, in finding a new America and pioneering a new spirit and Fairy did it with urban artwork. He not only did this with OBEY but single handedly made OBAMA a brand not just a candidate.
I can’t wait to get my hands on some of the pieces from this collection. It turned out really good.
Below are some pictures from the collaboration available here:
