Terry Urban X Mick Boogie X BING

Here’s the Terry Urban x Mick Boogie BING commercial that aired on the VMAs last night. Peep Mick rockin the Sir Eric Wright tee (still available here in limited quantities). The Bing spot also mentions a website that we’ve been working on called Mixstream. Check it out by clicking here. It’s in beta right now… but keep checking back as the site evolves into the next level of everything right about mixtape culture. This idea was brought to you by @terryurban, @MickBoogie, and myself (@TheCornerClub).  

Why the Japanese Are Awesome.

Greetings!  This is Brittney (Bambi), the intern, writing.  This marks my first blog post for Dope Couture and I am excited.  Thank you to Matte for asking me to take part in this.  I hope you will enjoy my random thoughts about art and fashion.  I love these things with a passion and can’t wait to dig into them for this blog.  Being in such a fashion-forward environment like Dope Couture has opened my eyes to a lot of cool things, one in particular being the huge influence Japanese art has on the design world.  From Original Fake to Yayoi Kusama to just how well the Japanese dress in general has all captured my attention.  So, I am going to dedicate my first few posts to this topic: why the Japanese are awesome.  :) Reason #1: Takashi Murakami Takashi Murakami is a Japanese artist who founded the postmodern art movement called “Superflat” which is influenced by manga and anime.  The whole idea of Superflat derives from the “shallow emptiness of Japanese consumer culture” creating flattened forms of Japanese graphic art, animation, pop culture, and fine arts.  He actually worked with Marc Jacobs, the genius artistic director for Louis Vuitton, to come up with the Multicolore print for LV that debuted in 2003.  It all started when Marc Jacobs went to the Cartier Foundation in Paris and saw Murakami’s exhibit.  Being a huge fan of color, Jacobs was immediately drawn to Murakami’s joyful designs and fetish with manga (Japanese anime).  ”I thought I would love it if the mind that imagines this dizzy-making world of jellyfish eyes, singing moss, magic mushrooms and morphing creatures would be willing to give a go at the iconic Louis Vuitton monogram” said Jacobs. So, together they worked on the rather fun project of revamping the Louis Vuitton Monogram until they came up with Multicolore and many other fun designs to spice things up from the getting-to-be dreary browns and tans at LV.  How I would love to see the pile of sketches and mood boards from this reincarnation… sigh.  Here is a spectacular video Murakami made celebrating his then 6-year relationship with Louis Vuitton… “Super Flat First Love.”  Check it and dig it. Louis Vuitton presents “Super Flat First Love” by Takashi Murakami – HD from Art of Travel by Louis Vuitton on Vimeo. Aside from Murakami’s artwork, he also runs an art production company called Kaikai Kiki LLC that promotes and manages new artists, puts on the GEISAI art festival, and produces art-related merchandise and animation.  GEISAI is actually a very exciting opportunity for aspiring artists.  It  is a competition that happens twice a year in Tokyo and Miami for artists all around the world.  Every year new artists are chosen and those artists are taken under the wing of Murakami.  His whole motive for Kaikai Kiki was to spur the Japanese art market away from “a shallow appropriation of Western trends, or an artificial construction of self-contained hierarchies” and to breathe life back into the art world that had seemingly disappeared during the post-war in Japan.  The lucky chosen artists not only get access to cool new technologies and  admission into some of the world’s finest art exhibits but they get to be in the midst of TAKASHI MURAKAMI.  I would seriously die to work with this man… Sigh #2.  Too bad Kanye West got to him before I did. Before ending this post, I am just going to add a little bit about how Murakami creates his work.  His method of madness can be compared to that of Andy Warhol.  It all began in 1998 when Murakami came to the US in search of an outpost for mass production to diminish the logistics and the costs of selling internationally.  Located in Long Island City, Murakami has a building filled with assistants making countless amounts of artwork, just like Andy did.  And, as Warhol’s studio came to be known as “the Factory”, Murakami called his the “Hiropon Factory” (in homage to Andy actually) although it is now named Kaikai Kiki LLC.  Murakami is rarely there as he spends most of his time in Tokyo.  He only comes to approve and sign the works when they are complete, and they are only complete when he says so.  Other than that, he has no apartment in Tokyo or New York.  He just lives in his studio.  ”I wake up and sleep in the studio, restrict my diet to live longer, exercise, read piles of books, talk to my employees all day, do some drawings, and go to bed.  That’s about all there is to my life.  The only thing I have to look forward to is the moment a project gets completed, which lasts about three seconds.”  The part of this quote that killed me was “do some drawings.”  Talk about making a drawing and turning it into mass amounts of paintings, sculptures, clothing, CD covers, handbags, wallpaper, and so on.  It is like giving that one single drawing dangerous amounts of steroids.  Murakami has created an explosion of art.  An explosion.  It’s beautifully ridiculous. Takashi, Kanye and Marc.  All famous, rich and, I am assuming, very happy.  Thanks for tuning in.  Bambi.