Glossy to Grunge: How Art & Fashion Are Redefining Luxury
Art and fashion have always shared broadly similar social dialects and ecosystems. They reflect and respond to current tastes, cultures, and, importantly, sub-cultures. Both can be considered as social barometers adept at developing and morphing accordingly.
Fashion houses, brands, and artists alike have sought to establish ongoing dialogues with their audiences through a shared set of cultural values and ideals. But what happens when those tastes divert from more traditional connotations of ‘premium’ and ‘luxury?’ It’s a question that’s finding new relevance with the reemergence of grunge.
Egor Erkin in Misfashioned Sneakers, August 2020. Source: Instagram.
The grunge music scene originated in America’s Pacific Northwest, specifically Seattle, in the late 1980s and is seen as a bridge between more mainstream 1980s heavy metal and post-punk alternative rock. When we think of bands such as Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and, of course, Nirvana, it’s clear that the 1990s grunge aesthetic was in no way linked to any traditional sense or definition of luxury. But today, its aesthetic has firmly moved into the luxury sectors of both art and fashion respectively, as luxury has a completely new currency. There has been a mass casualisation across fashion, regardless of scope, market, or price point–due to the rise of streetwear and the desire for comfort that moves away from the hyper-gendered luxury categories of the 20th century. Nostalgia for the simplicity of the 1990s has started to redefine what consumers deem aspirational in both art and fashion.
Today, graffiti artists with a clear grunge aesthetic are being propelled towards luxury status via demand and reflectively premium price points. Take artists such as Los Angeles-based Mario Ayala, who works with the artistic collective Lost Bros. Ayala’s approach to art has been heavily informed by his past having grown up immersed in skateboarding and streetwear sub-cultures. Painting in acrylic using an airbrush technique and championing California’s vernacular styles, his paintings and sculptural installations draw inspiration from hand-painted signage, advertisement, and tattoos. His work is a natural fit for cult-classic brand Supreme which asserts itself as the ‘pinnacle of new luxury’ through its collaborations with both brands and artists. As other streetwear brands emerge from hip-hop culture, Supreme looks deeper into the non-skateboarding passions and influences of its close-knit community, drawing inspiration from boxing, gangster movies, Renaissance art, New York history, and now grunge.
Chrome Hearts Co-founder Laurie Lynn Stark at the store’s West Village location in New York City. Photo by Pegah Farahmand. Image courtesy of GQ.
Grunge is beginning to be considered big business in the art and luxury markets, and brands having a defining impact are the likes of family-run Chrome Hearts. Founders Richard Stark and his wife Laurie-Lynn state, “We never wanted to be famous designers. We wanted to be successful artists.” Chrome Hearts is redefining luxury with its custom silver hardware, sterling studs, and biker-style embellishments, moving beyond apparel to explore adjacent categories such as homeware and lifestyle–all also emboldened with a gothic-grunge style. The now-famous cross-design is immediately associated with Chrome Hearts and is, in a way, seen as the symbol of the luxury brand. As a result, a consumer wearing many heavy silver rings adorned with crosses now infers luxury streetwear. Some of the clothing and design elements of its store and the artwork are intense. The Starks’ unofficial East Coast clubhouse has been filled with more crosses than the Vatican. However, with younger celebrities and rappers wearing the clothes and a number of artist collaborations, Chrome Hearts has managed to infiltrate the new luxury space as cool, relaxed streetwear. However, given that the design has not evolved from the heavy Baroque-biker aesthetic that took off in the 1990s, how is the brand maintaining relevance?
Marcello, Harley Solomon, and Kristian ‘Kage’ Stark wearing Chrome Hearts jeans, September 2021. Photo by Frankie Stark. Source: Instagram.
It's simply because the grunge aesthetic is not static. It evolves and it’s versatile. Take Dolce & Gabbana. The luxury fashion house sponsored the recent Portofino-based wedding of reality star Kourtney Kardashian to Travis Barker, drummer of the pop-punk band Blink-182. From the clothing to the accessories, there was a clear essence of gothic grunge threaded through the event, from vintage black lace and cross-adorned chokers to ornate gold headpieces. Although the initial inspiration was clearly taken from the 16th century, the Italian Renaissance and the general splendour of their location, Castello Brown–a 1557-built castle–the festivities also riffed off more elaborate grunge aesthetics in the process.
Kim and Khloe Kardashian in vintage Dolce & Gabbana. Photo by Ellen von Unwerth. Source: Instagram.
Grunge at its most ornate was also a feature of the Botticelli Reimagined exhibition at London’s V&A Museum. It presented Botticelli’s works as being so extraordinarily embedded in the public consciousness that design and fashion both draw direct inspiration from him. The new era of gothic revival is emulating what was once a highly decorative, maximalist period, and we see this connection in the leather headwear and crosses of Chrome Hearts. In the same way, brands such as Dolce & Gabbana and exhibitions like Botticelli Reimagined are offering consumers a more formal, upscale approach to a grunge aesthetic.
Sean Norvet, Waiting For The Pizza Delivery Man, 2014. Oil on panel, 152 x 243 cm.
At the other end of the grunge spectrum, artists like Sean Norvet are producing grungy, airbrushed images, and, of course, the distressed pieces in Balenciaga’s new ‘Paris’ shoe collection, which have been incredibly divisive. Consumers have responded to the footwear by looking through their wardrobes and keeping their old sneakers. As such, these products are making a statement about sustainability, but it’s a relatively light one as the price of the sneakers ranges between £350 and £1,300. The point is more about buying into a limited edition that has been customised to look shredded, destroyed, and graffitied by the artist Léopold Duchemin. “He used a multitude of knives, scissors, punch paper for the texture,” said a Balenciaga representative. “For the colour, he used tea, wood filler, shoe polish, and floor polish.” The result is dubbed “Full Destroyed,” and, while the other sneakers in the range are gently scuffed, 100 limited edition pairs have been heavily distressed. With a limited release, the shoes are being presented as a series of artworks and have artistic credibility due to the involvement of Duchemin.
Balenciaga Paris High Top Sneaker in white. Image courtesy of Balenciaga.
Art and fashion are constantly redefining how consumers engage with and purchase items. Today’s consumers buying into luxury categories are striving to be a part of something cultural, novel, and sensorial. The expressions of grunge we’re now seeing in luxury are broad, considered, and have clarity of thought. It’s also revisionist in the same way that we’re now seeing young contemporary artists like Mario Ayala choosing to work in graffiti with bold acrylics. All of this suggests that the influence of grunge has staying power and will continue to diversify. There will be further exploration of less serious, more ironic approaches to grunge, creating works and pieces with high impact, hype, and ‘talkability.’ At the same time, it will be taken more seriously as the sustainable benefits of buying less and using for longer merge with greater levels of craftsmanship in individual pieces and it will almost certainly become more valuable. With brands like Chrome Hearts cementing their place on the fastest-growing luxury brands lists and artists like Sean Norvet being offered exhibitions at Richard Heller Gallery, grunge doesn’t simply smell of teen spirit anymore.
Grace Gividen
Contributing Writer, MADE IN BED