For me the modern graffiti interpretation has been applied through out all walks of life. At present, the Urban art scene has never been more relevant.

What I wanted to show off to you is Graffiti’s role in the catwalk fashion since its introduction and certain designers that have brought our culture forwards.

Legendary New York City writers such as Phase 2 and Lady Pink to name a few began connecting fashion and graffiti art by applying their train and street creations onto clothing: jackets, shoes, hats, and other items were adorned with the vividly striking images and characters that had become all too familiar to New Yorkers traveling the subways in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Graffiti directly impacted fashion design, as this particular fashion of writing on clothing, hats, and sneakers became an urban phenomenon that extended beyond the subway cars and neighborhood to the runway. During the early 1980s, Keith Haring was called on by Vivienne Westwood to collaborate on her “witches” collection, giving a distinct vibrancy to the clothing with his pop and graffiti influenced aesthetic.

Louis Vuitton and the late Stephen Sprouse in the 2001 “Graffiti” collection. Sprouse cleverly disrupts the backdrop of the elegant LV monogram with a bright pink, supposed tag-like, brush-stroked “Louis Vuitton Paris” that consumes the façade of the bag, akin to the suggested disruption of a public wall or space by graffiti. Not quite tag-esque however the introduction of more classic graffiti elements were applied throughout the promotion of this campaign.

At this point, it may seem as though we’ve traveled a road that takes us away from the “street,” but the considerations raised redirect us back to the connecting thoroughfare between graffiti and fashion.

The conditions out of which graffiti writing, hip hop, punk, break-dancing, and other forms of urban cultural expression were born were often not ideal, nor mainstream, but constantly developing individual expressions within a collective found in street fashion and graffiti continue to inspire people, trends, aesthetics, and practices to consider the boundlessness of expression and do not go unnoticed for long and designers continue to return to the wheel of this culture for their style application.

One of the latest to do this Moschino in 2015, despite the publicity stunt or public dispute over who owned the art used, Moschino took their designs to a more natural and raw use of spray can art on the catwalk bringing the catwalk very much so, to the streets.

After noting these ponient iconic shows that utilized the street art scene the several of which there are other related articles on our feed about, all the shows thus far have highlighted the primitive more destructive side of the urban culture, so where does this leave the developed evolution of graffiti art? Who will be the designer to take on the furthest design techniques of the wild style and the burner? Or will this side simply not be applied at all as it does not fit the ironic balance of blending destruction and glamour? Only time will tell..