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who did the monkey thing first?

tokyo someday

By tokyo someday
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Superdutch

Superdutch

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I remember in the 90s a lot of people re-discovered the whole Planet of the Apes aesthetic and how cool it was and it became a real graphic sub-movement in streetwear and hip hop.

Here in Melbourne, Australia there was a hip hop night called Planet of The Breaks and a skate shop called Evolve which use a Planet of The Apes style logo and there was a webzine called emperormonk.com and a UK magazine called Apeman which also used Planet of the Apes references in their graphics.

I know all this stuff was happening quite independently from BAPE (although probably a little influenced by XLarge at the time). It all happened just before the skull had a big comeback.

Nevertheless...the ape beats the shit out of the over-saturation of Coat of Arms style Lion graphics which came after.

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djrajio

djrajio

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"Nevertheless...the ape beats the shit out of the over-saturation of Coat of Arms style Lion graphics which came after."

Hell yeah. I'm so sick of all these supposedly dope t-shirt designer/labels/brands/chicken-scratch doing the same lame Coat of Arms, crossbones, skulls, distressed "Ray-gun" style, parody graphic themes. The Coat of Arms style is particularly egregious on all those "hip" internet-designer t-shirt brands that fucking suck. *End of haterate transmission*

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ABELnyc

ABELnyc

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XLARGE, started in '91 i believe, opened up a small store in the East Village NYC, on 10th st. and Avenue A. Their 'crest' if you will was the ape you see today that they constantly recycle, refurbish, regraphic, and resell.

SSUR, started in '89, did not originally come with any apeshit. The whole Ssurilla, Apethoven etc. shit came much later, toward the mid-to-late 90's. Ssur's first stuff was done for 555Soul (which was still pretty dope, esoteric etc at the time) and came with the Triple Five Deadly Venoms tee. He did his own logo flips and nods to movies etc., lots of graf homage graphics/hiphop ref's way before that famous Che/Ape figure was put into play. He was always into Planet of the Apes, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and had posters/pics/canvasses of various ape-related things around the store (on Mulberry, which has since closed due to the rent explosion). But the actual use of ape stuff didn't come right away.

Bathing Ape has indeed been around for a minute, but not longer than Xlarge. Far as I know, XLARGE were the first people to sweat the whole ape thing.

~multiflavored RodLavers~

http://abelnyc.com

ALPHA/BRAVO/ECHO/LIMA

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Superdutch

Superdutch

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Yakboy is correct - Ben Davis workwear has been using the gorilla logo for a very long time - The Beastie Boy's "Grand Royal" magazine featured an article back in about issue #2. The Beastie Boys also referenced the Ben Davis "face of the monkey" way back in one of their tracks too (which i can't be bothered looking up right now).

This was all around the time when Mike D had something to do with XLarge (not sure if he still does). So the Ben Davis logo was obviously an influence. There are some old pics of AdRock wearing a yellow tee that read "Very Ape UK" way back in the day which i believe may have been a very early BAPE tee. From what I know XLarge dates back from about '91 and BAPE from about '92.

Early 90s was all about the Apes! This was back in the day when the Beastie Boys were at the forefront of underground trendsetting...

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futureofstyle

futureofstyle

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Quote:

XLARGE, started in '91 i believe, opened up a small store in the East Village NYC, on 10th st. and Avenue A. Their 'crest' if you will was the ape you see today that they constantly recycle, refurbish, regraphic, and resell.

SSUR, started in '89, did not originally come with any apeshit. The whole Ssurilla, Apethoven etc. shit came much later, toward the mid-to-late 90's. Ssur's first stuff was done for 555Soul (which was still pretty dope, esoteric etc at the time) and came with the Triple Five Deadly Venoms tee. He did his own logo flips and nods to movies etc., lots of graf homage graphics/hiphop ref's way before that famous Che/Ape figure was put into play. He was always into Planet of the Apes, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and had posters/pics/canvasses of various ape-related things around the store (on Mulberry, which has since closed due to the rent explosion). But the actual use of ape stuff didn't come right away.

Bathing Ape has indeed been around for a minute, but not longer than Xlarge. Far as I know, XLARGE were the first people to sweat the whole ape thing.

--- Original message by ABELnyc on Sep 5, 2005 08:09 AM

Ha ha this is a funny subject cause I had asked the REP for XLARGE last february, he made some valid points about who rocked the ape on streetwear first... and it was XLARGE indeed...

Hi i'm just your average newbie chillin on supertalk!

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ABELnyc

ABELnyc

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Whoah, wait a minute. If you're gonna come with the real old monkey lovin pop culture people, you have to proper up Stanley the Manley Kubrick.

2001: a space odyssey is my favorite movie of all time (it dethroned True Romance) and if you wanna talk profound ape usage, check that film. it's literally the dawn of man.

word to exploiting other species.

~multiflavored RodLavers~

http://abelnyc.com

ALPHA/BRAVO/ECHO/LIMA

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KFC ONE

KFC ONE

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Ben Davis been doin' it with the ape for a minute so I'm not sure that they officially started the modern day Ape craze...but anyway...

history-photo.jpg

"Ben Davis Manufacturing, was founded in 1935. The Davis family has been involved in the US garment industry since the mid 1800s. Company Founder Ben Davis' grandfather Jacob Davis was instrumental in the creation of the original Levi's Jeans." - taken from website.

1995 Grand Royal Mag Interview: http://www.bendavis.com/Grand-Royal-Magazine-Ben-Davis-interview.htm

Taken from interview:

O.D.: What about the monkey logo?

B.D.: In those days there a number of firms making similar merchandise. There was one that had a rooster for a logo, one that had a bulldog, one had the head lamp of a locomotive and so forth. I conceived the idea of putting in the ape or gorilla. I had a professional artist draw three of them and I picked the best of the three.

Edited by KFC ONE on Sep 6, 2005 at 01:17 PM

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