Pop-up Shop | Ryan Hawaii
“David Cameron Hates The Mandem”, Ryan Hawaii proclaims on a t-shirt in bold graffiti. In a stroke of tech-age punk protest, both image and phrase went viral on Instagram.Still, as much as Hawaii’s artwork is visually indebted to punk’s patched, painted, fundamentally DIY aesthetic, it’s the movement’s fury and anti-establishment vigour that he most seeks to embody in his art. “What appeals most to me about punk is the mentality… Not letting anyone else dictate what you do. You determine your own fate and do what you want to do… If I want to do a thing on the street, I’ll just do it. I’m not going to wait until someone says I can.”
Hawaii began a foundation in Graphic Design at Camberwell College of Arts before dropping out because, as he tells me: “I always had a vision to do my own thing.” Instead, three years ago, he began painting on canvases from his local fabric shop Rolls and Rems and then stitching the results to t-shirts, all from a bedroom in his Catford flat. Not originally, at least, for artistic reasons, his DIY technique was a way to sidestep the need for minimum orders from printing companies: Hawaii simply didn’t have the money to pay for 100 t-shirts. If it was an accident of circumstance, it was certainly a happy one: creating garments that manage to recall the graffitied leather jackets of Basquiat and his acolytes, as well as the fraying street uniforms of The Warriors’ tribes, Hawaii stumbled upon a perfect medium for his distinctive work. Since then, his output has developed from simple t-shirts to more complex projects, like a collaboration with workwear brand Bonne Suits. Whether he’s remixing streetwear touchstones like the Thrasher logo to playful ends, or painting statements of proud anarchy — “Teenage Angst Forever!” — Hawaii will nearly always temper his anger with a wicked playfulness.
Hawaii might not want to call himself a designer, but he does what the best and most cerebral designers do: provoke thought and change through their clothes. In fact, the early work of fashion’s original youth designer and one of Abloh’s undisputed heroes, Raf Simons, actually bears an uncanny resemblance (both visually and conceptually) to Hawaii’s. Simons’ iconic SS02 collection carried the portentous subtitle: “Woe onto those who spit on the fear generation… The wind will blow it back.” Something tells me that’s the kind of designer Ryan Hawaii could buy into.
Words: Benji Walters, Wonderland Magazine