All images courtesy Anonymous Club
Prior to Hood By Air’s relaunch this year, Shayne Oliver had a phone conversation with Kanye West where he divulged his personal hopes for the future of his beloved label: “the next steps of HBA is to really contribute to experimentation in the world as opposed to just the commercialisation of it”. The two spoke in early 2019 and over a year and a half later, the Minnesota-born designer’s vision is gradually appearing on the horizon.
Oliver’s creative output has been outlined into four distinctly defined channels that remain closely interlinked. The first and most familiar channel being Hood By Air which will represent a continuation of Oliver’s expression in luxury fashion. The likelihood of the label showing on a seasonal basis is minuscule given comments made to West where he shared that the “fake excitement of the [seasonal fashion week] schedule” significantly motivated his decision to withdraw from the industry.
Not to be confused with Hood By Air, HBA will now serve as Oliver’s direct-to-consumer platform, creating a separate space in the Shayne Oliver Multiverse where commerce can be prioritised without warranting any artistic compromise across other channels. HBA works closely with Museum which reissues pieces from the label’s archive in the form of capsule collections to satiate the desires of matured hypebeasts who “miss the old HBA” that they reminisce hunting for in their teens.
The most intriguing channel comes in the form of the deliberately cryptic Anonymous Club. The Club is the most overt example of Oliver’s declaration to West about the future of his work coming to fruition—Anonymous Club underpins his entire ecosystem through an experimentation-centred approach. In layman’s terms, the Club is a creative studio offering its members an open-ended art residency programme that incubates creative talent in a multitude of artistic fields. The music, fashion and performance that the Club produce is distilled into a central visual narrative that will represent the new Hood By Air. We reached out to Anonymous Club to uncover more.
What is Anonymous Club?
Anonymous Club brings things to life.
As a studio it creates new forms.
And as a residency it births new practices.
In previous interviews you’ve noted that artists struggle to have careers without fame. Is Anonymous Club, in part, an attempt to challenge the notion that one cannot separate an artist’s public persona from their artwork?
Anonymous makes space in culture for new voices and ideas.
It forms its own economy.
Here, residents are a cast of characters.
Their works and personas inform one another and shape the whole.
Their collective vision creates a new world.
In this way, Anonymous is a machine for inspiration.
An inexhaustible resource.
A serpent living off its tail.
One of Anonymous Club’s offerings is an artist residency programme. Why was this something that Anonymous wanted to enable and do you think that the traditional gallery-artist residency formula is in need of a radical, industry-wide reconfiguration?
Every year Anonymous hosts a new class of residents.
Young creatives selected from our world,
Artists in our landscape and performers from our club nights,
Brought together organically.
Each generation of residents create new works.
They reflect the state of our community and its future
They inspire products and opportunities.
This is the same process that defined Hood By Air’s creativity and birthed the alumni of that system that has returned as Anonymous Club.
Shayne already oversees the creative functions of Hood By Air, HBA and Museum—how does Anonymous Club fit within the existing strands of the Shayne Oliver ecosystem?
Anonymous Club is the holding cell for the creative teams behind those strands.
Anonymous is a studio where talents are incubated.
Radical ideas are put to work, seeding the same culture they sow.
It is a garden where things grow – a place where cultural production is a total art form.
Many governments around the world have used the highly uncertain times as an opportunity to dissuade young people from pursuing careers in the arts, branding the industry as an incubator of ‘unstable’ careers. Will the work of Anonymous Club look to counteract such imprudent and negligent advice?
Anonymous Club thrives under chaos,
It has rallied artistry since its origin, no matter the landscape,
Anonymous is constant and growing in all directions.
Alongside the launch of Anonymous Club, you’ve released a black logo t-shirt that feels like a move straight out of the streetwear playbook. Given Hood By Air’s early history with streetwear and integral role in forming the now ubiquitous concept of street-couture, is streetwear likely to be a medium that is explored within the work of Anonymous Club?
Artefacts and merch grow out of each class of residents.
Merch is the language of Anonymous Club, our DNA of music and performance,
The mediums of Hood By Air are practice for Anonymous Club via our creative work for their campaigns.
Anonymous builds these artefacts of events as work in isolation and pure existence for that moment. The black resident tee is the first piece of merch for the first wave of residents.