MCM Unveils Collaboration With Seoul-Based Artist SAMBYPEN
Launching on May 1, 2021, the series celebrates Berlin’s vibrant street art and graffiti scene, as well as Seoul’s irreverent youth culture.
Photo: Courtesy
MCM Unveils Collaboration With Seoul-Based Artist SAMBYPEN
If you appreciate collections where art and fashion collide, you’ll love MCM’s latest collaboration with Seoul-based artist Sam Kim (or SAMBYPEN). This collection is part of MCM’s ongoing initiative, Global Creative Platform, and this season it celebrates Berlin’s vibrant street art and graffiti scene, as well as Seoul’s irreverent youth culture.
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Photo: Courtesy
MCM Unveils Collaboration With Seoul-Based Artist SAMBYPEN
For the uninitiated, Sam Kim is a parody artist, who creates art by poking fun at brands and culturally significant objects through personal interpretations, and the exuberance and youthfulness is evident in this MCM x SAMBYPEN collab. He reimagines the German luxury label’s iconographies by deconstructing and reconstructing them. Case in point: He gave the logo a graffiti treatment as a nod to street culture.
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Kim also created three animal characters to symbolise the brand’s journey from Berlin to South Korea—Henry the Timid Lion (inspired by the Munich Lion); Kaiser the Blunt Puppy (inspired by Wilhelm II and the symbol of Germany); and Haru the Wicked (inspired by the MCM Rabbit and German Easter Hare).
Photo: Courtesy
MCM Unveils Collaboration With Seoul-Based Artist SAMBYPEN
“The theme of ‘MCM x SAMBYPEN’ is ‘Media Creates Madness’, addressing the contemporary society in which we live. We, who grew up in the ‘Analogue Age’ now live in a ‘Digital Age’, and have become a generation of chaos and adaptation. The media has an unavoidable role in modern society, where massive amounts of information flow through us via the internet and videos. My focus has always been to observe yet subvert this dynamic by employing unabashed and sarcastic designs against traditional iconography,” says Kim in a press statement.
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MCM Unveils Collaboration With Seoul-Based Artist SAMBYPEN
The same street-inspired luxury treatment was also given to the rest of the collection comprising T-shirt, shirts, outerwear, cushions, slippers, carpets, polo shirts, cargo pants, shorts and jewellery for both men and women. The collection icons are juxtaposed against MCM's Visetos, representing a journey from past to future.
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Photo: Courtesy
MCM Unveils Collaboration With Seoul-Based Artist SAMBYPEN
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"From 1976 to now, MCM draws on a journey which began in Munich and continues from Berlin to Seoul. From art and music to technology and travel, MCM has been at the centre of the Zeitgeist, embodying the freedom to be bold, irreverent and aspirational. With an eye for reinvention, this unique philosophy has inspired a design approach where function and culture follow creativity. The shared ethos between MCM and SambyPen resulted in a collaborative project where art, fashion and entertainment blend and the underground converges with luxury," comments Dirk Schonberger, Global Creative Officer, MCM.
Click through the gallery below for a preview of the collection.
The collection launches on May 1, 2021 in-store and online.