Expressions of urban life

Expressive signs of the need for freedom and to manifest one's thought or one's opinion, often appear on the walls of cities, which outsiders, eclectics and artists, through slogans and logos with a political or social background contest or simply criticize the political and financial caste, and with images and shapes they contrast the depersonalization of large metropolitan areas, transforming all this into a rapid technique to execute one's own drawings, meaning the cities as an immense free gallery.

Street art

Initially seen as an expression of youth vandalism precisely for the use of public spaces as a form of contestation and protest, artists with a great expressive charge use it to freely express their abilities in order to exhibit, promoting themselves, in a large exhibition open to a very large audience, their works, as if to emulate what the primitive man already made on the walls of caves , reiterating with modern techniques and with the culture that distinguishes our era, writings, drawings and shapes, suitable to symbolize the evolution of our times.

Lately, thanks to the strong appreciation expressed by art critics for the activity of writers, rather than fighting them by resorting to forms of repression, rarely effective, their activities are encouraged by inviting them to participate in exhibitions and events in the name of urban creativity, involving them in the redevelopment of degraded areas, even with state funding, for the realization of street art works, graffiti and gigantic murals.

Hip Hop – Streetwear – Hypebeast

At the same time, the phenomenon of writing contributes to creating a common identity also in the young people of the "hip hop" artistic and cultural movement, which originated in the New York district of the Bronx, often identified with the homonymous musical genre, who see cities both as a space for life both as a space of expression, while in Los Angeles in California, inspired by this hip hop movement as well as by the punk, new wave, heavy metal and surf and skate culture, "streetwear" develops, which also includes elements of sportswear, and Japanese street fashion, a real way of dressing linked to the street, typical of boys who practice rap, surf, skate and break dance, representing a lifestyle, a history, an ideology in the which they identify with and of which they feel a part.

Recently, most of the major fashion brands, both luxury and mass market, have changed their strategies to incorporate streetwear, which has become the primary driver of the fashion industry, confusing the boundaries and differences between high fashion and street style. . This is how, by mixing styles, even turning to second hand, the "hypebeast" culture is generated, which makes exclusivity the main concept of its philosophy, transforming streetwear into a hybrid phenomenon given by the meeting of brands and griffes that they merge, and of limited editions to be possessed at any cost, giving rise to forms of ostentation that have now become a worldwide mass phenomenon.