obey levis
Levis is partnering with artist/fashionmaker/copyright fighter Shepard Fairey to create an Obey meets Levis new line of products. They've announced the partnership with a Facebook fan page, of course.
This is especially interesting in that Shepard already has his own line of apparel.
Licensing, brand partnerships and art coming together...for a better pair of jeans.
posted by darryl ohrt @ 7:30 AM
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4 Comments:
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When will he give us something new? And hopefully something that isn't ripped from something else?
For Fairey, I see this as possibly being the latter. Aside from the art being well respected, it doesn't add quality to a product like Levi's, so I'm not sure what the value here is other than just expanding the reach of the brand. I really don't see it as building value in any way. When you start to see brands speading themselves onto everything (Von Dutch comes to mind), then you really start to question where the value actually is.
@shosko
http://sethhosko.com
Seth, I think you're right that this spreads the "Obey" brand a bit thin. And Ricky, you're right in that this really isn't anything fresh for Fairey. And he's due for something really, really fresh.
I believe the winner here is Levis. They get association with an artist, brand and style that they haven't had before, and positions them in a unique way. You can bet that the majority of the Levis audience has never heard of Shepard Fairey before, so this probably feels super fresh to them.
Does that weaken the Obey brand? Does Shepard lose more credibility? Probably. (But maybe the Levis check was worth it.)
He is a visionary artist, and the manner in which he has parlayed his "Andre The Giant Has a Posse" world wide sticker campaign from the subculture to the masses is jaw dropping.
His entire concept with the Andre The Giant campaign was to create a worldwide meme, and use playfulness and unexpected art to encourage awareness and questioning of one's mediasphere. In case some of you don't know, those domineering eyes in the "OBEY" artwork are Andre the Giant.
I expect that twenty years from now, his idea virus will be pervasive. OBEY TV. OBEY PERFUME. OBEY for PRADA. OBEY AIRLINES. OBEY CITY.
You might think it impossible. But the night Shep and I jammed the Boston Subway with Giant posters, I would never have imagined this would be the same guy to create a clothing brand AND create the most popular image of 44th President of the United States.