Why justinbieber, JBALVIN & more are obsessed with smiley faces in fashion
The smiley as irony -- happiness in the face of unhappiness -- figures heavily into KATSU’s work. For the artist, who typically spray-paints the logo with a drone, it represents “the human experience boiled down to a yellow stain. Some sort of prehistoric sign to understand our emotions. It’s like, ‘Life is fine, even [though] it really is not.’ ” His smiley is something entirely different from the blissed-out ’80s rave smiley, the mock ’90s grunge smiley and the campy 2000s smiley.
EyeFunny designer Jury Kawamura launched his company in 2003 with a patented diamond smiley, and 16 years later, his handmade pieces are finally finding commercial success. “I wore the COOOOL necklace [in Paris], and J Balvin said, ‘I want to buy [that] same one,’ ” says Kawamura, who sells the piece for $40,000 and is now planning to collaborate with the artist.
Despite the many legal claims to the symbol -- most famously, Walmart’s decadelong action against Belgium-based The Smiley Co., which owns the rights to the logo in 80 countries, generating $265 million annually -- “the Drew House version [is] a distinctive entry in a cluttered landscape, so I doubt that any of the other claimants will bare their teeth at it,” says Susan Scafidi, founder/director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law School.
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