08/21/08
Text: Ashley Houk
LeSportSac, the bag company all your friends love, premiered its new Artist in Residence (AIR) series last Sunday at McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn. The first artist is young Dutch graffiti star B. Free, aka Merijn Hos, who has designed three different prints for LeSportsSac. His images are cartoony yet realistic, with long-legged, high-heel wearing, freckle-faced characters cavorting in trippy landscapes. B.Free often deals with societal themes like friendship, loyalty, escapism and organized confusion, which appear in the form of ghosts, life and death, and hidden messages. When LeSportSac created the AIR program, they thought Merijn’s images were a perfect match.
“[We] wanted to incorporate his fantastical world into ours,” Paula Spadaccini of the LeSportSac marketing department said via email. The bags are all in the classic LeSportSac style, with the large logo and signature rip-stop nylon fabric. Each bag comes with one of B. Free’s three prints. You can choose from “B.Free,” which looks like a colorful, psychedelic landscape in the artist’s classic style, or “Freak Yeah,” a black and white print with shooting stars and planets. Then there’s “Good Times” another crazy world filled with smiling faces, clouds and pyramids.
Stop by McCarren Pool’s Yo La Tengo show this Sunday and visit the LeSportSac pop-up store—you won’t be able to miss the brightly colored dome near the stage. You’ll be able to view all of the prints, and purchase the “Good Times” bag. The other B. Free prints will be available in the coming months.
Keep checking in because LeSportsac’s next Artist in Residence is Fifi Lapin, known for her blog, whose design features impossibly adorable bunnies.
www.lesportsac.com/artistinresidence
