 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Clothing |
| Genre | Streetwear |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Founder | Shepard Fairey |
| Headquarters | Irvine, California, U.S. |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | General apparel for men and women |
| Brands | Obey Giant, Studio number one, Subliminal projects |
| Website | obeyclothing |
Obey Clothing (stylized in all caps) is an American streetwear company founded in 2001 by street artist and illustrator Shepard Fairey as an extension to his work in street art and activism. [1] [2] [3] The images on the brands clothing are wide ranging and include images that parody mass market consumerism such as those used in the John Carpenter film They Live [4] as well as parodies of politically and socially provocative propaganda, [5] such as the "OBEY Giant" image that is used on the clothing which fairey has described as having "Orwellian" [3] connotations.
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The logo and image that the brand is most associated with dates back to an image Fairey created in 1989 [6] [7] [6] which was an image of Andre the Giant [6] with the text reading "Andre the giant has a posse." [6]
In 1996 [8] [9] Fairey altered the image of André the Giant and changed the text to read OBEY [9] and Fairey has described this change as being a "transition ...into something that had more of an Orwellian connotation". [3] [10] It is this text "OBEY" which has become the brands logo and along with the new image of Andre the Giant it is often used on the brands clothing. Prior to the creation of the clothing brand this image and text had become popular worldwide through its use in street art. [1] [2] [3]
The brand has collaborated with Keith Hufnagel's HUF and Levi Strauss, [11] as well as with artists Cope2 and Keith Haring, [4] singer Debbie Harry, [12] [13] and zine Pavement Licker . [14]
The brand has diminished in popularity following the mid-2010s, but is still active, with the FW18 collection release attempting to reestablish the brand. [15] On April 21, 2016, Mike Ternosky—Obey's head designer—received the 2016 Spirit of Design Award, an annual fashion design accolade given by Thomas Jefferson University. [16] From May 16 to October 27, 2024, the brand was displayed at the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan, at an exhibition dedicated to Fairey, titled "Obey: The Art of Shepard Fairey". [17] In spring and summer 2022, the respective collection depicted fiestas. [18] In early 2023, furniture company Helinox collaborated with Obey, creating six pieces of portable furniture. [19]
