Don Ed Hardy-- Tattoo

Actually I've been fond of Don Ed Hardy and his style for years, but I hadn't not bought any pair of his shoes or clothes until now. Don is a real tattoo artist for his American, Japanese, Cholo, tattoo, surf and hotrod iconography.

Don Ed Hardy was born in Costa Mesa, California, in 1945. He spent most of his childhood playing with tattoo and stuff. After that, in the 1960's, Hardy attended printmaking program at the San Francisco Art Institute and then opened his own tattoo shop named Dragon Tattoo. However, the shop seemed not to work well, so it was soon closed after 1 year. In 1973, he came to Japan and researched Irezumi, Japanese tattoo, carefully and enthusiastically. After many unsuccessful years, he turned to be very famous at San Fran tattoo style. In 2000, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the San Francisco Art Institute. In November of 2006 Hardy and Andrew Sutton founded their own FDA Certified temporary tattoos following his design artworks.

I think Don Ed Hardy's style is very special and unique since it's the combination between American and Japanese hotrod imagery. His designs are not only good at graphics, but also have their own depth and meaning. In my opinion, he's turned his tattoo artworks into a kind of art before tattoo became a really popular culture like today. Most of his works are drawn with bright colors and simple graphics such as the skull, the tiger, the beauty, the fish, etc; however, we can see everything is done truly uniquely and creatively. And actually Hardy's work moves away from traditional tattoo forms to try more new graphics, colors, materials, textures, so and on. That makes his works extremely well-known and special.

Here are some of his works:

(I have just bought this pair of shoes ^^)