Cult of Denim by Stuart Semple

For the past month, Stuart Semple has displayed his “Cult of Denim Project” at the world-renowned department store Selfridges (London). Evisu and a few other leading denim brands provided the pop artist with bolts of denim in lieu of a canvas, our denim naturally being selvedge. Aside from the paintings, the project includes prints, hand painted jeans, and an installation with 20% of the proceeds going to the UK Charity Refuge.

About denim, our founder Yamane-san said, “Not Renaissance, but eternal. Putting on a shirt, a jacket, or a pair of jeans you don’t need solemn words. Nobody rediscovers it, it’s been there all the time, the real style will never grow old”. Semple has a similar denim philosophy saying, “I’m interested in how this second skin protects and broadcasts. How it reflects our identity and cultural tastes. Whether flared, distressed or just perfectly fitting, they can tell us so much about the body within them and ultimately the mind of their owner. I’m fascinated by the way this interacts with our outer environment, the way our bodies move and what they come in contact with changes these garments to be unique in their wears and tears, blemishes and stretches”. Our raw jeans are about creating a garment that reflects you. Both Semple and Yamane-san understand that jeans aren’t just about woven fabric, copper rivets, cotton stitching, and indigo: Jeans are the perfect garment to wear everyday, reflect your individuality, and serve as a “record” of your daily life. Semple explains that the Cult of Denim represents the brands that “understand our inner needs, in them we trust the transition from inner identity to outer communication. If idolatry is the worship of any cult idea or image other than God…”.

It’s apparent that Stuart and Evisu share common views of denim’s transformative quality saying, that it represents “an infinite palette of choice, a way to present our ideology to the world, surface identity being shaped by environment and body”. Raw denim almost serves as a blank canvas for us to express ourselves – making denimheads everywhere “artists” in their own right with their bodies serving as the medium.

Stuart’s Evisu painting is titled C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me), which is well-suited for a brand named after one of the Seven Japanese Gods of good fortune. Semple’s references are as varied as the mixed media used to create the painting including acrylic, paint marker, charcoal, household gloss and glitter. His imagery spans a timeline of Japan, which suits our brand’s reproduction roots. The painting includes fighter planes, a linear Hokusai-inspired landscape of docked Japanese fishing boats, a bamboo baton wielding femme fatale, along with our iconic motifs such as Kamome gulls, a traditional Ebisu statue, and our Godhead patch. His eye for color combined with imaginative composition serves to create a dynamic piece that embodies the Evisu ethos - although it’s clearly missing an empty sake bottle or two.

Lastly, we would like to thank Emily Mann, Stuart Semple, and Selfridges.



Relate Link : www.evisu.com