Stussy has been putting together some interesting collaborative projects over the past few years. Today marks yet another chapter in this series with the release of the first group of the Our Gangs tees. Todd “Reas” James, So Me, Delta, Morning Breath, and Rob Abeyta applied their distinct style to a tee for this first group. Each design sees one of the artists interpreting the concept in their own way. Rob Abeyta’s contribution, seen above, appears to be a tongue in cheek cartoonified interpretation of the gangs in his home of Los Angeles, with a daring combination of blues and res. You may recognize his work from previous designs for Undefeated, Girl Skateboards, Fourstar, and Nike. Check out the rest of the first group after the jump.

Perhaps the most well known of the contributing designers, Todd “Reas” James is seemingly all over the place these days. You’ve likely already seen his recent work with Nike on the Running Man pack, and may have seen other designs without even knowing it. Dude has done logos for people like The Beastie Boys, Eminem, and Mobb Deep. His Attitude Dancer coloring book is a favorite conversation piece in my apartment. His distinct cartoon inspired style is again apparent here. The brick effect on the Stussy logo is an especially nice touch.

My personal favorite design of the bunch comes by way of Europe through the famed grafitti writer and accomplished visual artist Delta. The robot like figures making up his gang speak greatly to the rapidly increasing reliance on technology, while also desiring a certain sense of both simplicity, and more importantly, individuality. Taken at face value, the color scheme is very strong and the sense of perspective makes the shirt very eye catching.

So Me brings his interesting typographic eye to this shirt, which is reminiscent of his other work for the skyrocketing Ed Banger Records (home of the inescapable Justice among others). It’s interesting how each artist creates an interpretation of a violent gang culture which acknowledges those aspects without glorifying them. Maybe I’m just desensitized and suburban moms would take issue here, but I suppose that’s a bit of the appeal as well.

Rounding out the group is the contribution from the Brooklyn based duo that is Morning Breath. This design comes closest to traditional gang imagery out of the group. While the design itself is strong, part of me wants to call them out on a weak concept. Knives, skulls, and an olde english style font? Sure, it’s done better than most, but it’s also been done by most and having seen some of their previous work, I was hoping for more.

These shirts are now available through Stussy Direct and if they aren’t in Stussy Chapter stores now, you can expect them sooner rather than later. If they’re anything like some Stussy artist collaboration collectioons in the past, don’t expect them to last very long.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 12th, 2008 at 10:37 pm and is filed under Clothing, collaborations, Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.