LONDON — Solidifying its presence in the U.S. market, Axel Arigato will unveil a capsule collection with Brooklyn-based artist Alvin Armstrong on Thursday, featuring a range of ready-to-wear pieces inspired by the vibrant colors in his artwork, as well as Squish, a brand-new, oversize sneaker model.
According to Axel Arigato’s creative director, Jens Werner, he has always admired Armstrong’s bold and expressive use of color in his artworks, especially “The Listening Skies,” the original painting that inspired the collaboration between Armstrong and Axel Arigato.
“What struck me most is that Alvin is self-taught, like myself. We share a mentality of learning by doing — no boundaries, just the urge to create and explore. He wanted to buy a sewing machine and start experimenting with making garments, and that curiosity mirrored my own creative journey,” he said.
“So when I stepped into my new role [as creative director], I wanted to expand Axel Arigato’s connection to the wider art community beyond music, and Armstrong felt like the perfect person to collaborate with,” Werner added.
“The Listening Skies,” the original painting that inspired the collaboration between Alvin Armstrong and Axel Arigato.
Courtesy
Having spent his early years in California, as well as Japan and Hawaii, where his father was deployed with the Navy, Armstrong’s artwork often portrays Black subjects in motion, celebrating their grace, strength and presence through a more worldly point of view.
With art creation, Armstrong said his process involves living, thinking and feeling, exploring different ideas and things he comes across visually.
“Every day I enter the studio, I turn on some jazz, I burn some Palo Santo, and I get to it. I am kind of ritualistic in that way. When I am in my space, I close the door and just let my feelings pour out.…I create as I go along based on what I am seeing, what I am feeling, the overall composition and the overall story. The emotion and energy that’s present while I’m painting is focused and fleeting. Each painting is one of one in that way,” he added.
The capsule collection marks Armstrong’s first venture into fashion, a sector the artist confessed he had been interested in early on in his practice as a painter, specifically about the process of how things are made.
For research, he delved into Axel Arigato’s past collections and history, as well as other menswear fashion archives, before starting the co-creative process together with the the brand’s team.
“As an artist, I’m eager to learn and push myself, and it was the same with this process with Axel Arigato. I think that comes through in my choices of color and shape. I didn’t hold back on making things extra boxy, plush, and comfortable. The color palette I use in my work is really diverse and vibrant, so it was a challenge to limit myself in this collection,” Armstrong said.
The oversize inside-out striped crew with a dropped-shoulder design and ribless cuffs and neck is his favorite piece from the capsule because of how it came to be.
“I knew I wanted to play with the inside of the jersey crew material that’s used across the industry. I wanted to highlight texture and feel, so I designed it to use the side that’s normally on the inside of a crew sweatshirt as the outside surface, which initially confused the sample factory,” Armstrong recalled.
The Squish sneakers from Axel Arigato
Courtesy
As for the Squish sneaker, Armstrong said the style was a bit chunkier at a time when a lot of the footwear silhouettes on the market were more minimal, with flat soles.
“The Squish stands out aesthetically to me. Once we decided to collaborate on a shoe, I was struggling to find a specific silhouette in the brand’s archive that felt right for me and for this collaboration. At that point, Werner started showing me some of the future silhouettes that were coming down the line, and when he showed me the Squish, I liked the shape right away,” he added.
Werner said the idea of the Squish came from wanting to encase the leather upper in a rubber outsole, as if the two forms had been literally squished together.
“It’s not a classic Axel Arigato silhouette, but more of a distorted evolution of what we’ve done before,” he added.
“When we began collaborating with Armstrong, there were clear parallels in our creative language, and we wanted Squish to resonate in the U.S. So naturally, he felt like the right partner for that. His work is so much about proportion, shape, and color, and that connection to his art naturally informed how we approached the Squish design,” Werner continued.
The Squish sneakers from Axel Arigato
Courtesy of Axel Arigato
Last fall, Axel Arigato opened its first store in the U.S. at 273 Lafayette Street in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City.
Werner said the store has seen growing sales in the past few months, and through New York-focused partnerships such as the upcoming one with Armstrong, the brand hopes that it can connect further with on-the-ground creatives via authentic cultural exchange.
