Baseball is getting an art-world makeover, and the Dodgers are part of it. The team is among those featured in a collaboration between Major League Baseball and KAWS, the artist whose work has jumped from street art to blue-chip galleries and mass-market fashion.
The collaboration
The project puts KAWS's signature look, including his "XX" motif, onto baseball apparel, trading cards and other merchandise, with the Dodgers and the New York Yankees among the featured teams, the Los Angeles Times reported. It is the latest example of the sport reaching beyond the diamond to court younger fans through art and streetwear rather than standard team gear.
Who KAWS is
KAWS is the working name of Brian Donnelly, an American artist who began in the 1990s altering billboards and bus-shelter ads before building a career around his "Companion" character, a mournful, cartoonish figure with X's for eyes. His pieces sell for large sums at auction, and he has collaborated with brands from Uniqlo to Dior, making him one of the more commercially visible artists of his generation. That crossover appeal, equally at home in a museum and on a hoodie, is much of what makes the baseball tie-up notable.
Why it fits
For the Dodgers, one of the sport's marquee franchises and a fixture of Los Angeles's cultural life, a collaboration with an artist of KAWS's profile is a natural fit. The city's identity blends sports, entertainment and art, and a KAWS-designed jersey or trading card sits comfortably at that intersection. Full details of the collection, including everything it will include and when each piece goes on sale, are still emerging, but the pairing itself signals how far baseball merchandising has traveled from the standard cap and pennant.
