FRANKIE PEREZ is a New York & Montreal based artist whose visual identity is informed by his background as a world class breakdancer. Both his photography and films carry a sense of motion while exploring fashion in a raw, youthful, and energetic style. His work has been featured in The New York Times, i-D, DAZED, The Face magazine, & Creative Review while also being commissioned by clients such as Converse, Maison Margiela, Reebok, Depop, VANS, Farfetch, Obey, & V Files. Currently Frankie has just self published his 1st photography book entitled “See Me Up? It’s ‘Cause I’ve Been Down” which is centered around the dance culture he grew up in. "The lamppost images were inspired by “Gone Missing” or “For Rent” signs one might come across while walking in the street. I had the intention of contrasting the mundane with the unusual or exciting by inserting what I thought would be out of the ordinary imagery into these everyday locations. I purposely wanted to do a few on streets where one might not expect to see an ad so that when I left the printed images on each of the lampposts it would unexpectedly add value to someone’s day because they ingested a different type of image that they may not be used to."- Frankie Perez OBEY FALL 21 EDITORIAL BY FRANKIE PEREZ

This month we are hosting the first show in our brand new Artspace in the Amsterdam Store. For this project we worked together with Patty Morgan who did a great job curating this art show with the works of 25 artists. Patty Morgan is an online platform that offers art pieces from progressive creators. To create a bigger audience for the amazing work in Patty Morgan’s collection, we teamed up using OBEY deadstock for upcycling and created a wearable art web shop, with the works and details from the 25 awesome artists, named the ‘BODYSHOP’. If you were able to get your hands on one of the unique items you can actually wear their web shop. There are only a few items left, so please check www.pattymorgan.net to see what’s still available. The art show is up till August 30. So please come and experience the works and our OBEY Artspace. @obeyartspace@patty_morganwww.pattymorgan.net

We sat down with OBEY founder Shepard Fairey to discuss his graphics for the Fall 2021 season. In these videos we highlight four graphics, focusing on their origin's as fine art and their adaptation onto t-shirts. TUNNEL VISION RAISE THE LEVEL LOTUS ANGEL ENDLESS POWER

For our second OBEY flagship store in Amsterdam all our furniture was designed by Amsterdam based design agency Studio Appelo and made by self-employed, young and Amsterdam based creatives. The shelves, signs, checkout and modular furniture are made by ‘Wellwellwell’, a company started because of the Corona crisis. Colin started ‘Wellwellwell’ together with Lorenzo Pinto. Colin is the owner of the bar, club and skatepark ‘Skatecafe’ in Amsterdam Noord. His friend and co-owner of Skatecafe Hugo de Jonge, worked there as a chef. Because they had to close down for several months, they started building furniture in their workshop behind the bar. Colin and Hugo both knew their way around with a welder and started to take orders. The OBEY shop was their first big order. For the modular furniture they asked their friend Eva to sculpt the top part of the metal boxes. Eva is a fine arts graduate, with Sculpture as her specialty. She made the sculptures all by hand. And gives the furniture a really nice, handmade look. Please go and have a look in our store and see what we are proud of. Come hang out, check the new collection and some cool Shepard art. https://www.instagram.com/studio_appelo/https://www.instagram.com/wellwellwell.nl/https://www.instagram.com/evavanessen/

We are proud to announce that OBEY Amsterdam, our second flagship store,is now open! Due to regulations we can only have a limited amount of customers in store and had to postpone an official opening event, but we are hoping to celebrate with all of you soon.Please follow @obeyamsterdam for updates on the collection,special releases, future events and more. OBEY AmsterdamRunstraat 251016 GJ Amsterdam

The brand “Rusmin” was founded in March 2019, by young entrepreneur and all-round creative Rubi Pigeon. The mission statement of the 23-year-old Franco-Brazilian “to create and promote eco-friendly clothing via up cycling, what someone else disregards can be a treasure”. She does this by gathering past collections from various brands then transforming them into unique new pieces; deconstructing and reconstructing the amassed garments by her own special skill set. With her unique designs, she refreshes and transforms the garments into a fresh vibrant new look. Please check out Rubi’s Youtube channel (RUSMIN) where you can pick up tips on up cycling, DIY and lifestyle trends. Follow her as she designs, creates and roams the vintage shops of Paris. Rubi was quick to realize that the overconsumption culture we live in is having a detrimental impact on the environment and our future. She demonstrates to both younger and older generations how easy and fun it can be to reuse garments; instead of constantly buying new and discarding your wardrobe. The OBEY team fell in love with her enthusiasm and abilitiy to create unique pieces which really transforms an item into something completely new and eye catching. OBEY continues to be committed to reducing its environmental footprint wherever possible, from sourcing sustainable materials to monitoring responsible manufacturing procedures. Reducing our carbon footprint is an ongoing mission but we’re up for the challenge, striving to constantly learn, improve and educate along the way. Rubi is an inspiration for us all and we are proud to have had the opportunity to collaborate with her. She shifted through the unsold items from our past collections, made her selection of 8 styles, and quickly began creating magic with her team. The collection includes such styles as shorts, rompers, and crop tops. The Rusmin items will be on pre-sale on our website on the 11th of May. The pieces are very limited, so stay tuned, you won’t want to miss out! Links: Rusmin Youtube ChannelRusmin IGRubi Pigeon IGObey Clothing Paris IGObey Clothing Online Shop

For Spring 21, we worked with Polish photographer Maria Zuzanna Kniaginin-Ciszewska on an editorial shoot featuring unisex product in the OBEY line. She is currently a fourth-year student at the Photography Department of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague."I work mainly when traveling between The Netherlands and Poland. My interests revolve around stereotypes and their presentation in culture. As an independent visual maker, I work between reality and fantasy, penetrating the socio-cultural norms. By creating different representations of the female form, I explore the limits of taboos and icons. I do finds artifacts of Polishness or more broadly Slavishness as well as concepts and patterns of the body and interpersonal relations. As a feminist and being part of the LGBT+ community, the construction of idea plays a major role in my work. As the form is constantly stretched and in change. Hence to break the heteronormative narrative in culture."In support of the project, OBEY Clothing has donated to Grupa Stonewall to support the LGBT+ community in Poland. We encourage you to do the same and help them to inform, support and educate. Our mysteries of everyday life, are between reality and fantasy, exposed in the light of a medium-format camera and a release cord. Following, two characters, me and my girlfriend, thought different parts of the day, different parts of life. Performing how it is to be, a lesbian couple in the most homophobic country in the EU — Poland. With all the recent events in our motherland, we decided and felt inside-out, that the embracement, and the representation, is the most important. Not to victimize ourselves, but to create our own world, that might become a reality one day. Hence to fight against heteronormative narrative in culture.Only female production is a bubble of a dream world we want to live in, bringing together creative individuals, our visual upbringing and background of an Eastern and Central Europe, and making it a fantasy of reality.You can follow us, to the countryside, to our meeting with the mother-in-law, honeymoon in the hotel room, and how we were up for something, with our girl gang, while being at school.All the images were taken in Poland, in 4 different locations. - Maria Zuzanna Kniaginin-Ciszewska Grupa Stonewall.plGrupa Stonewall IG

In a new feature, we wanted to take a look at Aksawí Owusu. You may recognize him as a model for OBEY for a few campaigns. Known well within the skateboarding community, Akwasí has been creating art and particularly a musical instrument known as the Kalimba, from which he is building out of old skateboards. He talks about balancing different passions and taking chances in everything you do. As he says, "Don’t sleep on your ideas!” We hope you enjoy.

 Like almost everyone, I watched the video of George Floyd's murder by the Minneapolis police with horror and sadness, but unfortunately, not a surprise. I've often felt outraged, sickened, sad, alone, and disillusioned by racism and police abuse of power, with those two things frequently converging tragically. I've also been disillusioned by a lack of vocal moral outrage from much of the public and by, to quote Martin Luther King Jr., politicians who "are more devoted to order than justice." The system often lets those who abuse their power literally get away with murder. My way of coping when too many people seem indifferent, has been to make images spotlighting these issues and injustices. I use these images to donate to organizations like Black Lives Matter, the ACLU, The Southern Poverty Law Center, the Equal Justice Initiative, and #Cut50, all of which do critical work on the social justice front lines. When protests began in Minneapolis, I was ecstatic that enough people were distressed by what happened to George Floyd, and what has happened to countless unarmed people of color at the hands of the police, to hit the streets. Unfortunately, what began as a peaceful protest and noble use of free speech, which should be protected as a civic right, escalated to include looting and fires being set. I deflate when I see a demonstration start with the moral imperative to protest injustice, only to play into the authoritarian narrative that all protesters are "criminal agitators" because a few trouble-makers misbehave. This pattern of legitimate protest mixed with unjustified vandalism has emerged in several cities, including LA and given city leaders the pseudo-justification for a heavy-handed police suppression of the protesters and implementation of curfews. I'm heartbroken that the vandalism muddies an incredibly important message that the powers-that-be need to be hearing from the nationwide protests. A nation of conscience cannot tolerate a system that allows racism and abuse of power! Let's take a deep breath, channel our outrage that George Floyd and Eric Garner couldn't breathe, and realize that though street protest is a powerful, visceral, way to participate in democracy, voting is essential to change things. Politicians respond to pressure at the polls. Researching the candidates who have the best records on race relations and criminal justice is vital to putting people in government who will reform the system. We have to demand the reforms of police policy and culture in the streets AND in the voting booth. My opinion is that racism is one of the lowest forms of human behavior. Racism has no place in society in general, but especially not within the culture of those paid by the people to serve and protect. Obviously, racism and abuse of power are extremely difficult to eradicate, but individual behaviors change, and group culture changes when there are consequences for bad behavior. If there are consequences even for milder forms of racism and abuse of power, if those behaviors are punished the moment they are visible, those bad actors can either be reformed or weeded out before they can murder people. Law enforcement seems to police everyone except themselves. I accompanied this post with my image "Bias By Numbers" because the numbers don't lie… racial bias is horribly real when it comes to policing, sentencing, and often media portrayals. We all have a legitimate reason to be outraged by this injustice, but we need to use that rage as motivation to get to the polls. Also, if you have a constructive outlet for your voice, please use it! I can tell you from experience that creative response is therapeutic and a powerful way to rally allies! Thanks for caring!-Shepard

*Due to the global lockdown, we asked dear friends around the world, to show our new summer collection from inside their homes.No professional photoshoot, no fancy location, just good old selfies, safe, sound in and around their own homes.Meet the OBEY posse and read some more about how they're dealing with the current situation. 1.) What did you do before lockdown?Made music, worked photoshoots, and maintained a social life (RIP). Now I’m just making music which isn’t a bad thing at all. It’s kind of nice being forced to work on one specific thing. 2.) What did you find out about yourself during this quarantine?I realized I have a tendency to use my busy schedule as a distraction. Being alone with my thoughts every day has forced me to make my mental health a priority rather than ignore it because ‘i’m too busy.’ 3.)What music have you been listening to?Been on a major Danger Incorporated kick lately, “Stranger” by Pseudo’s on repeat, and obviously all my own shit cause why make music if you’re not gonna jam to it in your room by yourself at 3am. 4.)What is the first thing you will do after this is over?Joshua Tree. Camping trip. All my buds’ birthdays were during lockdown so we have a lot of celebrating to do. -Becca Esopenko



ZZZAHARA is songwriter, multi - instrumentalist, and producer from Highland Park. She is heavily influenced by hip hop / rap, punk, garage - rock, and 80’s synth rock. As a teenager, she attended a myriad of back yard punk shows and played in a garage - punk band. Thus influencing her to create fast - paced tunes fused with her love for hip hop / rap and 80’s synth rock. She describes her music as being “accidentally dark or a satirical romantic comedy.” 

Here is the Official Music Video for the opening track instrumental stunner in collaboration with Icelandic musician Thomas Stankiewicz called "Atoms Song." Directed by Phil Nisco

James Guinto aka Alphafox from Southern, CA, member of ROTU / Dome of Doom records. Drops a New Music Video from his recent Album La Haine - End @ 3. Video by GRN & GLD member Joel Megoni aka Lobo Incognito. The video features La Haine Teeth and the color RED tying it back to the album cover and the color of the cassette, adding a visual extension to our imagination of what Alphafox music looks and sounds like. You can check out the video below.

Last Friday, we celebrated our latest Artist Series in collaboration with artist/illustrator Lennard Kok called 'Second Nature' at the OBEY Art Space in Amsterdam, releasing February 27. Besides the pre-release of the collection (shirts, a tote bag, a bottle and two numbered screen printed posters), Lennard made an exclusive booklet and a mural at the Art Space.Lennard lives and works in Utrecht. He studied illustration at The School of Arts Utrecht and works as a freelance illustrator.His drawings look minimalistic but when you look closer you see a witty and sometimes surreal narrative. Lennard chooses a clean aesthetic, using bold and black lines because he wants to tell a story as simple as possible.The collection, including a few left over signed prints will release next Thursday at selected stores and through our webstore.Thanks Lennard for your hard work and incredible art and a special thanks to everyone that showed up and made this one unforgettable!

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