Stephen Sprouse

Stephen Sprouse (September 12, 1953 - March 4, 2004) was a fashion designer and artist credited with pioneering the 1980s mix of "uptown sophistication in clothing with a downtown punk and pop sensibility".

Career
His intial Day-Glo bright, sixties-inspired, graffiti-printed garments wowed fashion editors', store buyers', and fashionistas' alike, but he had mixed business success. His initial collections (1983 - 1985) were huge critical hits, sold at only the best stores (his 1983 clothes were initially sold at Bergdorf Goodman and Henri Bendel in New York City) but he was out of business from June 1985 to April 1987, due to financial and production problems (he informally showed a Fall 1985 collection, which he referred to as being "hippie weird" and more seventies-inspired, with bell-bottom trousers, psychedelic prints, and maxi skirts, but lacked the funds and staff to produce the collection). Sprouse was noted at the time for using high quality, expensive, custom-dyed fabrics (his woolens were sourced by the high-end Italian textile house Agnona). Sprouse personally did the graffiti that adorned his earliest garments.

In Fall 1987, with financial backing from high-end furniture manufacturer Knoll International, he opened a three-level store on Wooster Street in New York City; a second (much smaller) store was opened in Los Angeles in 1988 at the Beverly Center shopping complex. He largely abandoned his signature sixties' silhouettes, instead drawing inspiration from the mid-seventies' London-based Punk Rock scene. For his Fall 1987 and Spring 1988 collections, he was given permission to use Andy Warhol's "Camouflage" series of screen-prints to utilize as textile designs; for his Fall 1988 "signature" collection, he collaborated with artist Keith Haring to create several prints of Jesus with graffiti "squibbles." His company, CSI (Cogan Sprouse Incorporated) also wholesaled the various collections ("Stephen Sprouse," "Sprouse," and "S") to retailers', but he lost his financial backing due to poor sales and closed down again in December 1988.

In 1992, he designed a capsule collection for Bergdorf Goodman, dubbed "CyberPunk," which featured Velcro in lieu of buttons. Bergdorf Goodman sold the line for two seasons (Fall 1992 & Spring 1993).

Sprouse showed a collection ("CyberGlitter") for Fall 1993, but it never went into production.

In 1995, Barneys New York handled the production of an exclusive Sprouse line, which fared poorly. In 1998, with full production and backing from Italian manufacturer Italia SPa, he was briefly back in business, but the clothes sold poorly and were largely ignored by the fashion press that had adored him in the 1980s.

Despite such ups and downs, Sprouse's apparel was so admired that his designs continued to fetch high prices in vintage stores long after he stopped producing the clothes.

The graffiti logo bags he designed in collaboration with Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton in 2001 made the fashion world take notice once again. In 2002, he created a vast collection of clothing, pool toys, skateboards, and accessories for the Target discount chain.

For Fall 2006, Marc Jacobs utilized Sprouse's 1987 graffiti leopard images for handbags, shoes, and scarves for Louis Vuitton, which sold-out instantly.

He designed clothes for Blondie's Debbie Harry (his one-time downstairs neighbor). He worked extensively with the band Duran Duran at the end of the 1980s -- he designed the clothes for their 1989 tour for the album Big Thing, as well as the covers for their 1989 greatest hits album Decade: Greatest Hits and their best-selling 1993 album Duran Duran (a.k.a. The Wedding Album), and he painted giant canvases that hung behind the band during their performance on the MTV Unplugged show.

Sprouse launched himself as a commercial fashion designer when he competed in a fashion show contest of young designers in Spring 1983, sponsored by the Polaroid Corporation. Based upon the favorable editorial reaction he received, he soon after formed his first company, Stephen Sprouse, Inc., and launched his initial collection for retail (production of his initial 1983 collection, done on a small scale, was manufactured by Dianne Phelp's company Triad. Sprouse formed an in-house production staff for the small runway collection he showed in his silver-painted showroom in December 1983). Financial backing was provided from his parents, Norbert and Joanne Sprouse.

He died at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City of heart failure, after a closely guarded diagnosis of lung cancer a year before. He was 50.

Related links

 * Andy Warhol
 * Keith Haring
 * Duran Duran