Whether it is in today's fashion circle or trend circle, cross-border cooperation between artists and brands seems to have become commonplace. For example, since Kim Jones entered Dior Men, it has continued to bring brands and artists. Joint series , such as KAWS, Daniel Arsham, Sora Yamaki, etc., are full of topics; the shoes that Tom Sachs, Parra, Steven Harrington and other artists collaborated with Nike are also one of the classic works in Sneakerhead's mind. The cooperation between brands and artists can not only attract the attention of followers of both parties in their respective fields, increase exposure and attention, but also often collide with the effect of 1+1 > 2 even from the perspective of products.
Usually brands tend to choose some art fields that young consumer groups are interested in, such as street art that everyone is familiar with. And street art can be divided into graffiti art, street performance art, poster art, street installation & sculpture, etc., of which the most well-known is naturally graffiti art. There have been many outstanding masters in the field of street art, such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, etc. The protagonist of our article today is the one most closely related to the trend circle among them: FUTURA.
FUTURA, formerly known as Leonard McGurr, was born in New York, the capital of street art, in 1956. The origin of the name FUTURA is a model of Ford Lincoln Futura 2000 and the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey". In addition, FUTURA also has FUTURE in French. meaning of the future.
Back in the early 1970s, he started graffiti on New York subways. The most distinctive feature of FUTURA's works is the abstraction of graffiti art. In the era when graffiti was still mainly in the form of inkjet characters, FUTURA created a precedent for abstract graffiti art. In this regard, he was an undisputed pioneer; and in the 1980s, he was even more so with his contemporary friends Keith Haring, Together with artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, they paved the way for the next decades of street art.
In addition to being known as the pioneer of graffiti art, FUTURA is also known as a "cross-border master".
In the 1980s, FUTURA followed the legendary British punk band The Clash on a European tour, and performed graffiti at the concert in 1981, and used the graffiti as the stage background. This move also made FUTURA in Europe on the other side of the ocean. ; In the early 1990s, he collaborated with the music label Mo'Wax, becoming the first graffiti artist ever to collaborate with Hip-Hop music; in addition, FUTURA also dabbled in sports and even what we are familiar with In the field of fashion, such as cooperation with BAPE, Supreme, CONVERSE and other brands with great influence in the trend circle.
FUTURA is also an important part of Harajuku culture. As early as 1998, he founded his own clothing brand FUTURA LABORATORIES in Japan. Although there have been ups and downs in the middle, the brand announced its return in 2018, and then also cooperated with companies such as Nike, a-cold-wall*, Levi's, Brands such as NEIGHBORHOOD, HUMAN MADE, and Uniqlo have launched joint projects, which have been enthusiastically sought after by the majority of trend lovers. It can be seen that the influence is still there.
This time, the king of crossover strikes again, and his latest partner is Dr. Martens, whom we are very familiar with. In fact, as we mentioned above, in the 1980s, FUTURA had a close cooperation with the legendary British punk band The Clash, which not only made him famous at that time, but also became famous in the century. It laid the groundwork for his cooperation with Dr. Martens, who was also from England and was deeply involved in rock punk culture decades later; and for Dr. Martens, the brand itself is also keen to carry out collaborations with brands and artists from different fields. Cooperation, so as to open up new styles and expand their influence. Dr. Martens had previously printed the works of another graffiti master Jean-Michel Basquiat on the shoes, so this cooperation with FUTURA is not a problem. Surprisingly.
Both parties have very rich experience in cross-border cooperation, so the sparks after the collision of inspiration are naturally wonderful. It is not an exaggeration to use sincerity to form this joint cooperation. The two sides chose the most iconic 1460 eight-hole boots of Dr. Martens as the blueprint for the joint name, and created two different styles of color matching.
