CONART: before streetwear was an industry

Today, streetwear is everywhere.

Collaborations, drops, resales, sneakers, designers, runways, and brands built around street culture.

But there was a time when none of that was clearly defined.

Before the term streetwear became a category within the fashion industry, some brands were simply creating from what they had around them.

Graffiti. Hip-hop. Skate. Music. T-shirts. The street.

CONART was one of them.

Los Angeles, 1989

CONART was founded in Los Angeles in 1989 by graffiti artist Ash Hudson.

The brand itself defines its roots around graffiti and hip-hop and considers itself one of the first companies to make graffiti the core content of a clothing brand.

But what's interesting about CONART isn't just when it appeared.

It's where it appeared from.

Hudson didn't come from a fashion school or a big company.

He came from graffiti.

Before becoming an entrepreneur, he had been a writer on the streets of Los Angeles. He started making T-shirts with his own graphics and selling them while still in high school.

What started practically as a hobby began to grow.

In an interview published by the Los Angeles Times in December 1994, Hudson explained that he had found something very simple but powerful: the connection between putting an image on a garment and turning it into something reproducible.

The wall was no longer the only canvas.

It could also be a T-shirt.

Graffiti you could wear

This idea seems normal in 2026.

In 1989, it was different.

CONART took the visual language that was living on walls, streets, and urban spaces in Los Angeles and began to transfer it directly to garments.

It wasn't just about printing a logo.

T-shirts could function as graphic pieces.

Some were provocative. Others had social commentary. Others simply carried the visual language of graffiti.

And that mix helped create an identity that belonged more to the street than to the traditional fashion industry.

By 1994, the phenomenon had grown considerably.

The Los Angeles Times reported that CONART was present in about 470 retail accounts, with orders of approximately one million dollars during that year.

But there's another particularly interesting detail.

From Los Angeles to Japan

A huge part of CONART's success happened outside the United States.

Japan.

In the mid-nineties, approximately half of the brand's business came from that market, according to the Los Angeles Times report. Pieces arrived in Japanese stores and could sell out quickly. There were even imitations of CONART T-shirts circulating in Tokyo.

Decades later, that connection between Japan and American streetwear seems completely natural.

But CONART was participating in that cultural exchange from the early years.

The graffiti graphics from Los Angeles were crossing the Pacific printed on T-shirts.

CONART and hip-hop

Graffiti and hip-hop already shared cultural space, so CONART's relationship with music happened naturally.

The brand and its team did graphic work related to artists like A Tribe Called Quest and The Pharcyde, as well as projects for AC/DC and work linked to Slash.

This helps to understand something important.

CONART wasn't just clothing.

It was part of an ecosystem.

Music.
Graffiti.
Design.
T-shirts.
Culture.

The boundaries between those things were much less important than the need to create.

Before the algorithm

Perhaps that's what interests us most about that generation.

CONART appeared before Instagram.

Before TikTok.

Before likes, algorithms, and the need to produce content every day existed.

A brand could be built from a scene.

From a community.

From a T-shirt someone saw on another person and wanted to know where it came from.

CONART grew precisely in that world.

An idea born from graffiti ended up reaching hundreds of stores and crossing continents.

Streetwear before it was called streetwear

When we look at these brands decades later, there's a temptation to analyze them using current rules.

But perhaps it's more interesting to do the opposite.

To understand them within their moment.

CONART belongs to a generation in which many of the rules of streetwear were still being written.

The brand itself continues to claim that history: Los Angeles, 1989; graffiti and hip-hop as foundations.

More than three decades later, their store still retains references to their graphics and OG logos.

That says a lot about the weight of an archive.

Respect for those who came before

At No Mercy, we believe that knowing these stories matters.

Not to live in the past.

But to understand where many of the ideas we take for granted in streetwear today come from.

There are brands that dominated an era.

There are others that helped build the language of a culture.

CONART belongs to that conversation.

From Guadalajara, our respect for a brand that understood something very early on:

the street could also be a form of art.

— NO MERCY CO.
GUADALAJARA, JALISCO — 2026