- Faze Clan will be getting a custom merchandise line by Takashi Murakami
- It will go live on June 28 and will be available for fan purchase via NTWRK
- Murakami reveals that this partnership will mean a lot in the future
The famous Faze Clan will be launching custom branded merchandise on June 28. It was specifically designed by the notable artist Takashi Murakami.
Faze Clan Jump On The Fashion Trend
One of the ongoing tendencies in esports is its convergence with fashion and the establishment of specific apparel for the gamer subculture. The renowned Faze Clan will not be missing on the trend and will be issuing a custom jersey line designed by the famous pop artist Takashi Murakami. The latter will also be designing a custom mouse pad for Faze Clan fans.
The merchandise items will feature Murakami's iconic smiling flowers. The fashion line will release on June 28, and it will be available for purchase on the shopping platform NTWRK
The partnership with Faze is Murakami's first venture into the world of competitive gaming, but it isn't the first time Faze has launched a merchandise line.
Faze is surely excited to work with the artist as they updated their Twitter profile and cover images with a Murakami pattern.
Writing History Together
Murakami revealed that he sees collaboration as something more than a simple partnership between two parties. For him, there is a deeper connection – he compared collaborating with the esports organization to the partnership between the American artists Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Murakami recounted how he was still in university when Warhol collaborated with a Basquiat. It was big news at the time as the two partners had a big age gap.
“For Warhol, who was past 50, to collaborate with Basquiat, the young superstar, seemed to me as though the former was sucking up to the youth, and I looked on feeling a bit sorry for him,” Murakami remembers.
“Then, they both passed away. A little over a decade later, the once-incongruous collaborative paintings, which had seemed to feature the generational divide as the sales point, started to look very fresh, like an embodiment of the situation of their time.”
Murakami pointed out that he is currently older than Warhol at that time, and Faze Clan's members are younger than Basquiat. The artist thinks that most people now will look at this partnership as something out of the ordinary, but in a few decades, it will be exemplary of the contemporary art and social context. In short, Murakami feels that he's writing history together with Faze Clan.
“While I felt a bit shy about doing a collaboration with such young people, I went along with their request, trusting in the freshness of the landscape the future audience will see in this project.”
The trend of fashion making its way to sportive gaming even led to the creation of an Esports Fashion Week event that will serve as a hub for gamer apparel.
