Acrylic Minds
The second instalment in the KIDS EP series is primed to drop, but true to the SPEZIAL spirit there have been more mixed-media collabs bubbling away alongside the music. Last time around we were shining the spotlight on our skate deck hook up with South Coast screen printers Back & Forth, and now it’s time to explore the work we’re doing with progressive fashion imprint Acrylic Minds.
The project is the brainchild of Sammy Griffin, 10 years deep in creative design and signage and now applying his talents to clothing. The concept of Acrylic Minds is to apply Griffin’s own graphic designs to vintage clothing to create distinctive new pieces. Griffin’s sharp visual eye is critical in picking out the right pieces to work on, with brands like Carhartt and Champion featuring heavily as the test subjects for his work, not to mention a strong line in repurposed military and hunting clothing.
As well as established legends such as Virgil Abloh, Griffin cites vintage fashion collector and designer Sean Wotherspoon as a key influence on the Acrylic Minds approach. Wotherspoon is a prime example of an artist whose passion for nostalgic looks fed into his own new designs and resulted in one of Nike’s best-selling sneakers in 2018 (the Air Max 97/1). Griffin’s own philosophy on upcycled fashion is equally rooted in resistance to fast fashion and its negative impact on the environment - by applying his designs to forgotten garms, they attain a desirability without any drain on resources.
A punk at heart who wants to disrupt the status quo in fashion, Griffin was a natural fit for SPEZIAL’s own impulsive, risk-embracing attitude towards creativity. The results are a capsule collection of one-off editions which further cement the unique and renegade ways in which the SPEZIAL stable is growing.
“Me and Shab have known each other for a few years now,” says Griffin, “and we both knew we would work with each other at some point. As soon as he showed me drafts of the SPEZIAL concept I was onboard, and we literally squashed the first collection in 24 hours. All the Acrylic Minds x SPEZIAL work we have done has been created on a three-second rule of decisions. We don’t want to over-think anything with this project, and so far it’s working really well.”
Moments of inspiration captured, pressed onto sick wares, never to be repeated. That’s what makes it SPEZIAL.
Interview By Oli Warkwick for SPEZIAL Artist Series