Art in the Streets: Influencing Urban Fashion by Street Art
But street art is about more than colorful murals to adorn city walls — it is a powerful cultural movement, reflecting urban life, identity and rebellion. From being an underground scene, over the years, street art has grown to become globally recognized art form and many artists including Jean Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Banksy have taken it to the mainstream. Street art is shaping cityscapes today as well as fashion trends. Raw energy of street art and rough urban edge are now making street fashion staples with graffiti inspired prints and bolder graphic tees. Today we take a look at how street art influences fashion and why it has this lasting impact on the clothes we wear.
Street Art: A Mirror of Urban Life
Art in the streets, or street art as it’s often known is said to be the voice of the city, unembellished and unapologetic, depicting the truths of the streets. Using city walls, street artists tell stories, they protest injustices, and celebrate cultural diversity. From simple graffiti tags, to intricate murals, these visuals communicate something that hits close to urban culture, and establishes a style that’s as passionate as it is fearless. Due to this, street art naturally ends up being a fashion-inspiration source which tries to capture the energy, the vibe that the urban landscape emits.
This reveals in fashion in clothing that encapsulates the vibe of the streets. Bold prints, spray paint effects and layered textures rework the look of graffiti and street murals in order for designers and brands to use them. These elements help fashion to take on an urban flavour which remains rebellious, unique and unapologetically believable, qualities that also speak to persons who see fashion as part and parcel of their identity.
Graffiti-Inspired Prints: Art on your Clothes.
Graffiti is one of the most popular ways that street art inspires fashion and is particularly popular through graffiti inspired prints. What love there is for vibrant colors and energetic lines in graffiti — it translates beautifully into textiles. Graffiti style lettered graphic tees, hoodies with abstract spray painted patterns, and jackets with tags and logos in all now staples of urban fashion.
Graffiti art has been embraced by big names in fashion, collaborating with street artists, or via including graffiti prints in their designs. From Louis Vuitton to Balenciaga, there are now collections made out of graffiti that transform luxury objects into street art that you can wear. Collaborations between graffiti and high fashion culture enliven its rebellious, DIY nature to a wider, more fashion conscious audience, guaranteeing street art long term use in global fashion trends.
The Rise of the Graphic Tee: A Canvas for Expression
One perhaps the most iconic elements of street inspired fashion is the graphic tee. Graphic tees are the like street art canvas of personal expression where designs can be political statement, pop culture references and others. Graphic tees are used by artists and designers to display everything from typography and artwork to precise logos and personal symbols, it’s like wearable art.
Skateboarding and hip-hop culture lead to this trend for expressing individual’s identities and attitudes through the use of clothes. Graphic tees are still a way to not just combine street art with the everyday style, but to make it into something more wearable. Whether it’s a hand drawn illustration, a bold slogan or a revamped pop culture icon, the graphic tee embodies the ethos of street art, in a form everyone can wear.
How Urban Fashion Scenes are influenced by local circumstances
Because street art is dictated by local culture, urban fashion is influenced by what is happening in the city. For example, in New York street art tends to use themes of resilience and diversity in expressing the gritty, fast paced energy of the city. In the urban fashion of New York, people tend to show up in one solid color palette, bold prints and layers in order to emulate the textures of city walls, and this we can thank this influence for.
Collaborations with Street Artists: Bridging Art and Fashion
For several years now, more and more brands have started to understand the street art appeal and begun to collaborate directly with artists to create exclusive collections. Among these partnerships, you see raw street art energy collide with the high fashion world; limited editions of their work in street art meets the uniqueness of the artist’s mind. Uniqlo’s love of collaborations with New York’s KAWS brought his famous ‘Companion’ characters to t-shirts and hoodies, so that fans could wear a piece of his art.
Collaborations on these help elevate street art from its underground backstory and mainstream it in the global fashion story. They also bring art and fashion together, becoming a bridge between the art and fashion worlds. These collaborations allow consumers the chance to own a piece of collectible, unique fashion with the signature style of their favourite street artist.
Street Art’s Global Reach: From Urban to Haute Couture
Urban fashion isn’t the only industry street art has inspired. As the high fashion designers are increasingly influenced by street art the fashion will wear elements of graffiti, pop culture and urban imagery from the streets. We’ve played the street art aesthetic, for example, to the luxury market; there’s no issue with that because brands like Versace, Moschino, and Dior have introduced it into their collections, they’ve allowed it into their collections, they blended it with luxury and it made sense. The blurring of high and low fashion brought on by this infusion of street art into haute couture makes street inspired designs an automatic piece of contemporary fashion.
The fact that street art’s influence is evident in haute couture (and vice versa) shows how far street art has come and how street art is accepted as a valid art form. Through merging of street art and luxury, designers offer collections with modern, dynamic, inclusive flavor, the world where art has no boundaries.
Final Thoughts: Street Art Spirit in Fashion
With all its graffiti inspired prints and graphic tees, street art has left a huge impact on fashion, endlessly inspiring clothes that are fresh, fearless and so real. The way street art continues to grow, it will surely influence many more ways of urban fashion, until we remember art isn’t just in galleries or museums, it is in the streets, and in the clothes we wear.
So next time you slip on a graphic tee or layer on a graffiti-inspired jacket, remember: You’re actually not just wearing fashion. This specific outfit is a piece of what you wear, of art, culture and the story of the city.