The HB20 capsule is officially live — visit the landing page to see the individual shirts in detail, as well as purchase your own while supplies last.

For our 20th anniversary, we’re honoring this legacy with a special curated exhibition. We’ve created a limited series of collaborative tees with longtime friends, creative partners, and some of streetwear’s most influential designers and leaders. Together, we want to reignite the energy of iconic graphics, logos, and messages from the past two decades — reimagined for today, and for what comes next.

In the following, we not only preview artwork from the upcoming anniversary exhibition, but also highlight the diverse perspectives of our collaborators whose insights help reveal the power of the T-shirt and give a glimpse into the past, present, and future of streetwear and creativity.

Takashi Murakami is one of Japan’s most celebrated contemporary artists, widely recognized for his signature “Superflat” movement that masterfully blends fine art with pop culture. His work is instantly recognizable through its vibrant, anime-inspired aesthetic, featuring brightly colored smiling flowers, playful characters and skull motifs. This style makes his art accessible while also being conceptually rich, exploring the critique of consumerism and social superficiality in postwar Japan.

Murakami’s influence extends well beyond the gallery, as he has redefined the boundaries between high art, fashion and music through numerous collaborations. While his partnership with Louis Vuitton in the early 2000s remains an iconic example, he continues to forge new ground.

In recent years, he has collaborated with Pharrell Williams, creating album art and music videos that bring his unique vision to a global audience. More recently, in 2024, his exhibition, Takashi Murakami Mononoke Kyoto, showcased a new 13-meter-long painting inspired by traditional Japanese art — demonstrating his ongoing dialogue between historical and contemporary forms.

As the head of his Kaikai Kiki collective, Murakami also serves as a mentor, championing emerging artists and cementing his role as a cultural entrepreneur who is equally at home in the art world, street culture and global fashion.

How long have you been making art?

Takashi Murakami: The roots of my art go back to the early 1970s.

In postwar Japan, there was a boom in bringing Western paintings into the country to showcase them. My parents would take the whole family every Sunday to look at paintings. As a child, I found these outings boring and hated them.

One particularly memorable experience was when I was 8 years old. We waited three hours in line at a museum in Tokyo to see paintings by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya. One of them depicted the god Saturn devouring his child. That image haunted me and kept me from sleeping for many nights. It became, in a way, my traumatic introduction to art, and I feel it remains at the foundation of my current artistic practice.

However, once I entered elementary school, rather than being forced to view paintings by my parents, I became much more interested in manga and TV anime. I was obsessed with Ultraman, sports anime about boxing, baseball, and so on.

Now, I create paintings and sculptures, as well as films and animations—and I believe this is rooted in those early experiences.

Our first post on Takashi Murakami was in April 2007, featuring the “Takashi Murakami Paintings On Honeyee.” What’s your first memory of Hypebeast? What were your initial thoughts?

At the time, I had no idea what was happening in the Hong Kong-based media scene, which made me want to get involved. I remember that the Hypebeast staff were very polite and kind.

Takashi Murakami has been a mainstay on our platform over the years and remains popular with our audience. How have you managed to stay consistent and relevant?

I have been lucky to always have had connections to the fashion industry. I think that’s the reason.

How do you see your work—and artistry —still evolving in the years to come?

Recently, I often wake up from nightmares in the early morning, only to find the night-shift staff using a grinder to flatten the surface of my paintings. It’s incredibly loud.

In that environment, I drift in and out of sleep while working on my art, day and night. I’m a super old-school workaholic…so I have no vision for the future. Sigh.

We’re releasing 20 T-shirt collaborations to celebrate 20 years of Hypebeast. Graphic tees have long been the backbone of streetwear — what do you think gives them that cultural significance? How has their role in fashion and style changed over time?

In 1994, I moved to New York and bought T-shirts at the newly opened Stüssy store in SoHo. Living in NY, going to the Stüssy store, seeing the products with my own eyes, and buying them — it was an amazing experience. I still remember the joy I felt. Wanting my fans to have the same kind of experience, I opened a store in Nakano, Tokyo. I believe the primitive joy of owning something — that’s the essence of T-shirt culture. And I think that feeling is timeless.

What advice would you give to emerging artists hoping to make a similar impact?

Keep going and don’t give up. When I feel like giving up, I watch motivational videos that pop up on social media to remind myself to stay strong and push forward.

What’s the number one lesson you’ve learned from being an artist for this long?

Never to give up and to keep going.

Looking back over the years, is there a particular piece, product, or moment that meant the most to you?

When I was a university freshman, I designed and printed about 300 T-shirts for a campus festival event where we carried a portable shrine.

Everyone wore them, and it brought me such immense joy. It was truly a special experience.

Streetwear has evolved dramatically over the past two decades, where do you see it heading next?

I think it will move even closer to the creators.

With AI, digital output, and a globally connected logistics network, the freedom to create is expanding. I believe more and more opportunities will open up for young people.

Can you describe the design you created for this collaboration? What inspired it?

It was inspired by the mood of a “Fruit of the Loom” T-shirt I found at an antique store when I first moved to New York.

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Stay tuned for individual interviews with each of our 20th anniversary T-shirt collaborators, rolling out each day over the next week.