African-American fashion designer Willi Smith, pioneer of
streetwear and visionary collaborator, finally gets his due in an
exuberant celebration of his life and work. Before Off-White,
before Hood By Air, before Supreme, there was WilliWear. Willi
Smith created inclusive and liberating fashion: "I don't design
clothes for the queen, but the people who wave at her as she goes
by," he said. A rising star from the time he left Parsons, Smith
went on to found WilliWear with Laurie Mallet in 1976 and became
one of the most successful designers of his era by his untimely
death in 1987. Smith broke boundaries with his streetwear, or
"street couture," and trailblazed the collaborations between
artists, performers, and designers commonplace today in projects
with SITE Architects, Nam June Paik, Christo and Jeanne-Claude,
Spike Lee, Dan Friedman, Bill T. Jones, and Arnie Zane. Essays by
leading figures from the worlds of fashion, art, architecture, and
cultural studies paired with never before-seen images and ephemera
make Willi Smith essential reading for the history of streetwear
culture and the evolution of fashion from the 1970s to today.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!