Ed Hardy's long road to redemption

If today tattoo art is so widespread and is part of the aesthetics of countless subcultures, Ed Hardy is one of the people we have to thank. Practically everyone associates Hardy's name with that hyper-colored, graphically chaotic and cheerfully tacky merch that dominated the canon of Y2K fashion together with his "half-brother" brand Von Dutch – but a fact that often goes unnoticed is that the artist Ed Hardy had little to do with that clothing, whose reputation as douche-fashion obscured the great contribution that Hardy himself had given to the spread of tattoo art. The artist, now 76, tried to adjust the narrative that surrounds him already in 2013 with his autobiography Wear Your Dreams: My Life in Tattoos but his real attempt to redeem his image has come only now, with the release of a new collaborative collection with the cult British brand Unknown, whose intention is to cancel the association of the brand with the trash world while riding the nostalgia for fashion of the early 2000s that made him an icon of his time.

As we said, Ed Hardy began his career in the world of tattoo art: at a very young age he worked in a completely amateur way but, after attending the San Francisco Art Institute and meeting the legendary tattoo artist "Sailor Jerry" Collins in 1969, Hardy abandoned his project to study at Yale and went instead to Japan,  becoming the protegé of Horihide, one of the yakuza's favorite tattoo artists – a period that formed his iconography suspended halfway between Japanese art and the imagination of Californian bikers. In 1977, Hardy returned to San Francisco and opened his own studio, Tattoo City, helping to transform tattoo art into the tool of creativity and self-expression it has become today, separating it from its origins in the world of crime, motorcyclists and sailors. His career took off from there, culminating in '95 with a profile compiled by The New York Times which was one of the first newspapers to question whether tattoos could be considered an artistic discipline in its own right. Just in a newspaper, years later, two representatives of the streetwear brand Ku USA saw his works and proposed a collaboration to Hardy who in 2003 signed his first clothing products decorated with his own artwork.

A young Ed Hardy (on the right) tattooing the neighborhood kids

Ed Hardy in his Tattoo City shop (ca. 1977)

Ed Hardy during the 80s

Self-portrait of Ed Hardy

Christian Audigier

The history of the brand as we know it began a little later, when French businessman Christian Audigier saw one of Ku USA's t-shirts and proposed to Hardy to become his licensee and produce an entire line under his name – Audiger was the same businessman who had created Von Dutch. The brand exploded: in 2009 the revenue exceeded 700 million and Ed Hardy products were everywhere. A climax of sales that also led to the decadence of the brand: if all over the world stars like Madonna and Paris Hilton gave their endorsement to the brand, its popularity among the stars of reality shows such as Jersey Shore and especially Jon and Kate Plus 8 were less liked by buyers. In particular, the ex-celebrity Jon Gosselin began to wear almost exclusively Ed Hardy t-shirts which, according to the artist's autobiography, was cited as the motivation behind Macy's choice not to market the line anymore. And Hardy himself began to resent the line that bore his name, famously going so far as to say that "morons dehumanized it." Meanwhile, Audigier had also begun creating sub-licenses, bringing Ed Hardy's name to lifestyle products that included, for example, tanning lotions as well. This then resulted in a legal battle that ended in 2009 with a private agreement between Hardy and Audiugier.

Kim Kardashian

Britney Spears & Christian Audigier

Paris Hilton

Zac Efron

David Beckham

Corbin Bleu

Dennis Rodman & Naomi Watts

Madonna

Mariah Carey

Shakira

Pauly D

Jonas Brothers

Bella Hadid

Addison Rae

Tyson Beckford

Tara Reid

Sylvester Stallone & Christian Audigier

In any case, it was too late: Pandora's box had been opened and the Ed Hardy phenomenon had taken on a life of its own. In 2013, Tom Julian, director of consulting firm The Donegar Group, said the two causes that led to the brand's cultural implosion had been "oversaturation and overexposure." Reasons with which many agree: in the early 2000s the dynamics of the luxury market were still unclear and a bit 'all the successful brands were very liberal with their licensing and their diffusion lines, slowly leading to the dilution of exclusivity, with a touch of classism: the stylist Philip Block defined the brand «very trailer park» indicating how his making itself available to all price points had also made him less aspirational and desirable.

Ed Hardy x Anti Social Social Club

Ed Hardy x Starwalk

Ed Hardy x Rose in Good Faith

Ed Hardy "By Appointment Only" Collection

With the explosion of post-2016 streetwear, however, the perception of the brand changed: Audigier died of cancer in 2015, and in the meantime the nostalgia of Y2K fashion resurfaced the appreciation for the excessive graphics and the unleashed branding of Ed Hardy whose rights had been purchased by Iconix Brand Group in 2011. Even Highsnobiety created a parallel between the hyper-decorativeness of Alessandro Michele's Gucci and Hardy's works (think tigers and dragons, embroidered jeans, and leather decorated with tattoo-inspired images). In the meantime brands such as Rose in Good Faith and Anti Social Social Club started collaborations with the brand, the custom-made collection "By Appointment Only" was launched together with collaborations with the sneaker brand Starwalk and Unknown. NIt certainly cannot be said that the brand is heading towards a return in style, its collaborations have remained too much under the radar even if they have not escaped the fans of the brand, but it is indicative that signs of life are coming from Ed Hardy – it is not excluded that the world of the archive begins to recover from the repertoires of the early 2000s his t-shirts,  its hoodies and especially its famous logoed trucker hats.