November 30, 2008 11:55 PM  (go back to main view)
Dawn of the Dead: The Sprouse Resurrection Begins
Marc Jacobs by Terry Richardson for Harper's Bazaar Jan. 09
If you've been wondering why it's been near impossible to score anything by Stephen Sprouse on eBay or elsewhere in recent months, well, the reasons that have been silently building are finally out of the bag with Monday's summation in WWD. I could reframe it all for you, but I'll just let darling Marc Karimzadeh's fine summation do the trick:
NEW YORK — Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton are paying homage to Stephen Sprouse. AGAIN (my word!)
To show their admiration for the late designer and artist, next month, Jacobs, Vuitton’s creative director, is using his hit 2001 collaboration with Sprouse for a new, limited edition collection of accessories and ready-to-wear. Jacobs even doffed his duds again, posing in the nude painted in Sprouse’s graffiti for Harper’s Bazaar’s January issue.
After Life: Sprouse graffiti'd sneaker for Vuitton
This comes at a time of renewed buzz about Sprouse, whose graffiti prints and Day-Glo clothes became a defining aesthetic of the early Eighties. It coincides with a retrospective — called “Rock on Mars” — at Deitch Projects’ 18 Wooster Street gallery from Jan. 8 to Feb. 28, and “The Stephen Sprouse Book,” by Roger Padilha and Mauricio Padilha, due out from Rizzoli New York on Feb. 1.
Marc Jacobs samples Sprouse for Vuitton
The impetus for the new line came when Deitch approached Jacobs and Vuitton about doing something related to the retrospective.
“I proposed putting together a Vuitton version of the Pop Shop, which was Keith Haring’s concept…not reissuing products that we had done with Stephen, but doing things that were similar or new,” Jacobs said.
Sprouse died in 2004, and the new tribute pieces, which hit Vuitton boutiques worldwide Jan. 9, pick up almost seamlessly where the 2001 collaboration left off. SURPRISE SURPRISE....
Stephen's rose motif on a Vuitton bag
Jacobs took two iconic Sprouse motifs — the graffiti and the rose — and interpreted them in Day-Glo shades of pink, green and orange over the Monogram print. The motifs are featured on Vuitton’s Keepall, Speedy and Neverfull bag styles, as well as basketball sneaker boots, pumps, sunglasses, headbands and wristbands, and small leather goods like wallets and coin purses. The rtw includes a mackintosh raincoat with a graffiti and monogram lining, graffiti leggings and a long-sleeve neon minidress featuring the rose design.
“I tried to take what Stephen had done at Vuitton and then kind of flip it in my head, and make it Vuitton’s work for Stephen, not Stephen’s work for Vuitton,” Jacobs said. “I just felt it was a funny way to play with it, to pretend to be Sprouse for a bit, and use the work that he did, and then bring it back to the work that he did before I collaborated with him.”
The original collaboration has its origins in the time when Jacobs was looking for a Paris apartment. When he looked at Charlotte Gainsbourg’s space on the rue du Bac, he stumbled across a Vuitton Monogram canvas trunk, which the actress’s legendary father, Serge, had painted over in black. It eventually inspired him to collaborate with Sprouse for spring 2001.
“For me, this monogram graffiti was the first milestone of our permanent reinvention of our history,” said Vuitton president and chief executive officer Yves Carcelle.
The uncompromising, head-to-toe Sprouse aesthetic is timeless, Jacobs noted.
“It almost becomes a classic, like a Chanel jacket, or a smoking,” he said. “It’s this idea of a head-to-toe look in this brash, neon, rock ’n’ roll, edgy, street-informed style. Sprouse really best personified it.”
Vuitton will pay further tribute with a special Web site — welovesprouse.com — slated to go live Dec. 15. It will feature a mix of interviews with people who knew Sprouse, including Debbie Harry, Candy Pratts Price and Patricia Field. In the clips, they muse on their relationship with Sprouse, and his lasting influence on the fashion and art worlds. There will also be a feature called “Scrawl the Wall,” where visitors can post comments, and a special section on Sprouse’s New York, highlighting some of the artist’s favorite haunts in the city.
“The thing that excited us the most is that somebody who disappeared years ago is going to be the center of life worldwide thanks to that for the next few months,” Carcelle said. “We really want to celebrate a friend.”
As for the Harper’s Bazaar story, it was shot by Terry Richardson and features Jacobs naked, his body painted in Sprouse-style graffiti and his relevant portions covered by one of the new Vuitton bags. Richardson also shot racier images of Jacobs completely in the nude, though these will not be featured in the Bazaar story.
“I don’t have a problem taking my clothes off, as anybody who has picked up a magazine in the past year could tell you,” Jacobs said. “I had no qualms or shame about it but knew fully well that any full frontal nudity wouldn’t be appropriate for Harper’s Bazaar.”
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Rose Apodaca is a pop culture and style journalist and the co-owner of A+R, the design retail lab in Los Angeles, and its online sister http://www.aplusrstore.com. She contributes to Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Glamour, Paper, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Style.com, Preen and other publications, and consulted on the launch of Image, The Los Angeles Times newest style section. Her first book, Style A to Zoe: The Art of Fashion, Beauty & Everything Glamour, an all-encompassing lifestyle guide written for celeb stylist Rachel Zoe, is now in paperback and hit The New York Times bestseller list in September 2008. She is currently wrapping up a biography on Fred Hayman, co-founder of Giorgio Beverly Hills and marketing architect of Rodeo Drive, as well as co-authoring a beauty book with neo-burlesque queen and style icon, Dita Von Teese.

A+R is located in Silverlake and on Abbot Kinney in Venice, CA.

Rose helmed the west coast bureau of fashion-industry bible Women's Wear Daily and was a contributor to W for six years until March 2006, when she left to join partner Andy Griffith in A+R and focus on related projects. She has long championed Los Angeles and California style and design, from the streets and runways to interiors and food. She is the first recipient of the Los Angeles Fashion Awards Communications Prize for bringing global attention to the region's fashion industry and style culture. With A+R, she continues to showcase rising and undiscovered talent from around the world.
 
In addition to co-owning Beauty Bar Hollywood and Las Vegas, she is a conspirator-in-camaraderie with several artists and designers showcased under A+R or related projects. Rose and Andy, who tied the knot in September 2007, live in Silverlake.

* All photographs appearing on this blog were snapped by Rose with her Leica D-Lux 3, unless otherwise noted. Please credit all photographs accordingly.

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