Off-White™ new hoodies inspired by Caravaggio
With graphics reproducing the "Boy with a basket of fruit"
April 21st, 2021
For its SS21 collection, Off-White™ presented a series of graphic sweatshirts, according to what is now an established tradition of the brand, with some paintings by Caravaggio. The line-up is opened by a graphic that mixes the Boy With a Basket of Fruit (1593) with the cross arrows of the brand but, scrolling through the catalogue, you can also see the painting St. Jerome (1606) and also a return of Leonardo's Mona Lisa on other sweatshirts.
The reason Caravaggio became a recurring motif in the collections of Off-White™ (Abloh included references to his works on clothes even in the time of Pyrex Vision) has never been explicitly explained although Virgil has said in the past that studying classical art of the Renaissance and baroque had inspired him a lot – in Caravaggio's case for his extraordinary realism and revolutionary use of chiaroscuro or, to use his words, « the idea that within the art you could invent».