Willi Smith: Street Couture

Hardback

Main Details

Title Willi Smith: Street Couture
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Alexander Cameron Cunningham
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:256
Dimensions(mm): Height 292,Width 191
Category/GenreFashion and textiles - design
ISBN/Barcode 9780847868193
ClassificationsDewey:746.92092
Audience
General
Illustrations 175 colour illustrations

Publishing Details

Publisher Rizzoli International Publications
Imprint Rizzoli International Publications
Publication Date 24 March 2020
Publication Country United States

Description

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.

Author Biography

Alexandra Cunningham Cameron is the curator of contemporary design and Hintz Secretarial Scholar at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.