ANDY WARHOL X HAPPY SOCKS

The playful sock and underwear brand Happy Socks have honoured the revolutionary pop artist Andy Warhol with a limited edition collection. Each collaboration is carefully selected by Happy Socks to make sure it’s a perfect match, with shared goals of making the world a more creative and colourful place. The collaboration is a tribute to Warhol’s life, work and quest to make art accessible for all.  

 

Andy Warhol

One of the most well-known artists of the 20th century, Warhol challenged the world to see art differently. To him, everything was art. Like Happy Socks, he found beauty in everyday places and invited everyone to enjoy it, not just a select few. Warhol once said “Pop art is for everyone.” Happy Socks continue with this idea, stating that “there is no object that embodies the everyday more than a sock: Sock Art is for Everyone”. 

 

The Art

Warhol’s best known pieces were produced using the screen printing process, and he is known for popularising this technique. Screen printing is a technique by which each element of an image is made into a stencil on a screen, each coloured ink is then pushed through the stencil over the top of each other to form the picture. Warhol would use the screens with various colour palettes, resulting in art such as his iconic Marilyn Monroe prints.

The Collection

Drawing inspiration from his now-iconic screen prints, this collaboration portrays his passion, his role as the pioneer of pop art, and continues his quest to make art accessible to all. The colour palettes of the socks play with loud, vibrant shades such as crimson red, pale pink and baby-blue for an eye-catching collection that’s distinctly Warhol. The print designs in the collection include:

The "darkly beautiful" Flowers

"Warhol used a photograph of hibiscus blossoms he found in the 1964 issue of Modern Photography to create these prints. When Patricia Caulfield, the photographer of this image, found out, she brought suit against Warhol in 1966 for unauthorized use of her image. There is something ironic, almost comical about the fact that Warhol went into a lawsuit for using a simple image of flowers after years of replicating copyrighted product labels– as if in Warhol’s hands, even an unassuming subject could become embroiled in confrontation, politics, and the law."  Leeron Hoory at Garden Collage 

The "iconic" Banana

Originally made for the album cover of The Velvet Underground & Nico by Velvet Underground, one of the most recognized and revered albums in rock and roll history; which Warhol actually produced.  Early copies of the album invited the buyer to "peel slowly and see". Peeling back the banana skin revealed a flesh-colored banana underneath.

The "elegantly cheeky" Dollar Sign

The "blazingly bright" Cow

The first image Warhol made in a series of wallpaper designs.

Happy Socks X Andy Warhol

The Andy Warhol x Happy Socks capsule collection includes six unique pairs of socks. All styles are available as singles, and four will be available in a limited edition designer box. The collection also includes two pairs of classic men’s trunks, and two pairs of seamless Cheeky underwear for women. All underwear styles are also sold separately or together in an exclusive designer box.

 

The Andy Warhol x Happy Socks collection is now available at Urban Surfer.