Whether adding a Nike swoosh to NHS T-shirts or asking kids to draw their feelings on the government’s Covid letters, the work of Jonny Banger blurs the line between art, fashion and activism
Jonny Banger is something of a free spirit with his fingers in many pies. As well as his fashion label Sports Banger, which makes witty slogan T-shirts, sportswear and occasional catwalk fashion collections, he’s started the Heras record label, set up food banks, joined political protests, had a club residency and organised raves and club nights across the UK. He creates a scene around himself, so a variety of people gravitate to him. It’s like Warhol’s Factory but on London’s Seven Sisters Road, and with a better duty of care.
Maybe more surprisingly, and closer to home, he also reminds me of William Morris, the Victorian designer and philosopher. Morris was very ambitious for his art and what it could achieve. He believed in the sanctity and centrality of art to everything in his life, that beauty was something that everyone should have and wasn’t just for the rich. Morris was electrified by Marx and became a pioneer socialist, and I think that Jon has that spirit about him.
