GREATEST: Eric Elms

There’s not that many other places to move either if you want to be around some type of culture. At least in the US, it’s kind of slim pickings city-wise. 

I moved out to New York to attend Pratt. Beyond the Streets kind of came from a generational type of group of people. Now creatives trickle out because you can notice them, but then there was this one generation that was ahead of my generation. Aaron Rose [the founder of Alleged Gallery and director of Beautiful Losers] created it. It was Barry McGee, KAWS, Geoff McFetridge—that whole crew had this whole thing going on. Kevin Lyons, McFetrige and Michael Leon all went to school together at Art Center. That’s a crazy crew of people all in one school all in one place. Kevin actually was my teacher at Pratt. Of course, it goes back further than that, but it changed from there. After that, there wasn’t really a next big clump of people, per se, you know? It was more that little creatives started popping up on their own because they could kind of make their own scene with the Internet around and all that. 

I remember in the early 2000s, me and a few kids drove to Cincinnati to go to the first Beautiful Losers opening. We wanted to do a road trip, but it was kind of a big deal that that whole crew had ascended up to the next level. That was kind of already happening with Street Market at Deitch, but it was a little moment. 

Coming from the imagery of skateboard graphics and late-1990s, early-2000s streetwear, when it was still kind of noholds- barred in terms of graphics, it was cool. There’s something fascinating about taking two references and making something new. You’re injecting your point of view into them and creating a little twist. I think when people just take something and rip it but it doesn’t change, it’s kind of pointless or boring. For me, just the tension of appropriating things or taking two disparate references and making them a new thing—I don’t know, it’s funny and interesting. There was definitely a change. You can see it in streetwear, where people started, instead of riffing on references, they were doing licensing deals or collaborations that were just one-sided. Those are fine sometimes, but generally pretty boring. 

The first board I got was a Tommy Guerrero with the sword— all the old Powell-Peralta graphics were amazing, as is Craig Stecyk. He and Vernon Courtlandt Johnson created whole worlds. 

If you go and look at all the old vintage stickers and stuff, it’s just all the weird, old different buckets there—the old hieroglyphic graphics, the skulls. They covered so many bases, and it was done so well. 

I actually wasn’t really even into art growing up. Looking back on it, I gravitated towards those things, but didn’t grow up thinking I’d be a designer. It just didn’t occur to me. In the mid-to-late ’90s, I met Shepard Fairey. I’m from San Diego, and he moved into my neighborhood. I would just start seeing all these posters around in the heyday of the Obey stuff—the super repetitive posters everywhere. I ended up running into him and he taught me how to screen-print. I would screen-print posters for him as my high school summer job. Later he brought me into BLK/MRKT when Dave Kinsey was there, Misha from Perks and Mini was in the office. Cleon Peterson was there. It was actually all of these kinds of really amazing artists and designers there for this one year or two. It exposed me to a lot. 

In terms of style, I think I kind of always, not necessarily struggled with it, but it’s a thing where I didn’t have a ‘thing.’ Shepard has a very specific style. KAWS has a style. I was exploring mine. Over time, all your work starts to have a point of view and a throughline. And even though it could change stylistically, cumulatively it creates a body of work—or I hope it does. v

When people come to you for work, they usually want something that stylistically you’ve done in the past, you know? I would consciously always try and do personal work that I thought would maybe shape future submissions or design work down the road. You’re kind of trying to guide your own career in a way. I’m really fascinated by learning new things, which probably isn’t the best career-wise. It’s easier to do the same thing over and over and over and have something that people can latch onto. I go crazy doing that. 

I was in a way earlier era—around early 2000—when there were approximately five of us in the office. So it was a way different animal than it is today. Regardless of what happens at Supreme, the one constant is James [Jebbia]. He has the vision and he really is the DNA of the brand. That DNA was already fully established when I was there, even in the early 2000s. Supreme has such a personality, so you’re almost designing to it. Everyone who works there is part of that Venn diagram and is overlapping with different interests; we’re into this music or into these sports moments that are fully aligned. And then sometimes you’ll pull things from your interests. You’re just trying to create a little cultural moment that aligns with Supreme. 

I guess streetwear is just inherently young, male-based. Maybe there wasn’t as much of a market for it out there—or at least it wasn’t perceived that there was. Now it’s probably just also an indication of the culture we live in, that’s opening up to females and gender fluidity across the board. It’s natural that it trickled down to every industry, including streetwear culture. 

Also, I don’t know if it’s necessarily a conscious decision. With Powers, I don’t make XXL or small shirts, because production is a pain in the ass and you end up with a bunch of sizes that you don’t want. It’s just more of a numbers issue than anything. 

It started off pretty side-projecty. I was really burnt on doing graphics in general. I think there was kind of a weird lull in streetwear graphics, but then when I started seeing more… I think there was kind of a revival—Peter Sutherland was doing graphics, [and other] artists and some young friends in Japan were doing cool, weird stuff, and they were throwing it with actual, real personalities. It got me excited about making stuff. Originally I was just going to make some graphics for myself and put them on my book publishing company’s site—not even name it. Then it kind of became something a little bit bigger and I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll call it Powers.’ You know, my studio is on Powers Street, and power supply—it’s kind of tough but means nothing. 

There’s so many brands now, too, but having a space where people can come and feel the universe of what you’re trying to do, both based on your product and what else you’re selling in the shop, has been really fun. I’ve always made weird art objects and books, and after they come out, they just sat in my studio. It’s interesting for me to have places to put these things. I have a reason to make stuff again. 

I mean, I don’t know if I necessarily disagree with it. I paint on the side and do stuff that I don’t consider design. I do think about them in pretty different ways. I don’t know if there’s a need to put them in buckets. There’s definitely beautiful design that’s very impressive and amazing, and paintings that are equally as good. There’s also equally bad versions of both. When I’m designing something, I never—no matter how much I like it—step back and think, ‘Oh, this is a piece of art!’ Maybe it’s not even an argument that should be had.