Game recognize Game. 

In the American slang this phrase defines a precise situation, when what we would call “one champion” recognizes another simply because he knows, knows the game and knows how to distinguish another immediately. 

Patti Astor, New York actress and performer, did exactly that. She realized that in the suburban culture of New York a number of writers had chosen to move away from pure lettering to create something new, original, personal. To use a phrase by Martin Scorsese quoted by Parasite director Bon Joon-ho, “the more personal something is, the more creative it will be“.

In 1981 Astor opened the first art gallery in New York’s East Village entirely dedicated to the exhibition of works created by street artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, Keith Haring and Futura, precisely to “give voice” to a movement that from then on will be recognized globally from both an artistic and cultural point of view. 

The interconnections between art and fashion are countless and it is news today that Futura, New York artist and writer, has collaborated with Off-White™ to create two blazers: one characterized by a multicolor pattern, the other monochrome, both made in twill with details in clear retro style.

Virgil Abloh’s choice to choose Futura as a partner in a collaboration gives us the opportunity to go beyond the simple collabo and tell the New York artist.

A true legend of street art, Leonard Hilton McGurr, was born in New York in the mid-1950s: a cosmopolitan choir of tourists, “intellectuals”, students, hippies, while jazz and blues artists perform in nightclubs.
In the early ’70s its “disease” manifests itself. That real disease that leads him to express his art on the trains of lines 1 and 3 of the New York subway. The tag “Futura 2000” begins to be omnipresent and his artistic evolution is fast and strong, establishing himself as one of the most influential artists on the New York scene and beyond.

The art of his graffiti becomes something else, it transforms, it progresses assuming a clear visual code that reflects the canons of abstract expressionism.

The 90s were the beginning of Futura’s first collaborations with clothing companies, while in the early 2000s its artworks were transformed and adapted to the contemporary world: collectible toys and sneakers on everything. After collaborations with brands such as Nike, Supreme, The North Face, Undercover, A Bathing Ape, comes the one with the brand founded by Virgil Abloh that we imagine will certainly not be the last.

You can buy Futura Abstract Blazers from Off-White™ on SSENSE.