Downtown Los Angeles artist and designer Jon Planas is set to release a Pride-inspired wearable art collection on Monday, June 1, blending fashion and fine art to promote unity, empowerment and visibility for the LGBTQ+ community.

The collection will feature about 25 pieces, including T-shirts, hoodies and accessories, all from his original artwork which he transformed into everyday items.

“It’s not just geared for people who are in the rainbow spectrum … there is no spectrum that isn’t covered by my designs, and by the hope that it will definitely be something that will make a statement …” Planas said. “It’s not going to be a quiet thing.”

Alongside the clothing, the collection will feature wall art and limited edition canvas prints that will be signed and sold with certificates of authenticity.

“These are all going to be fantastic pieces that you can buy and take home and have a conversation about the design,” he said.

Planas was born in Lima, Peru, and moved to the United States with his family at age 7. He lived in New York City for the first 30 years of his life and said he has always expressed himself creatively through both clothing and fine art.

As a young artist in New York in the 1980s, Planas said he was “very much moved by the color.” He graduated from the Pratt Institute, a private university in New York, with a degree in film and fine arts.

He explained that on the day of his graduation, he wore a hand-painted tuxedo in a surrealist style inspired by Salvador Dalí. That original outfit caught the attention of his commencement speaker, Malcolm Forbes.

“He singled me out in the crowd and said, ‘Look at this. Now, this man is going to go far. Look what he has done. Nobody else here has something like this,’” Planas said.

This approach of painting directly onto clothing rather than canvas became a defining part of his career. One night, while dancing at Studio 54, another one of his original clothing creations caught the attention of Andy Warhol and designer Calvin Klein, who noticed his hand-painted jacket.

“He completely stopped in his tracks and said, ‘Did you make this. What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I paint on jackets because I can’t paint on canvas.’ He said, ‘Why not?’ I said, ‘Because I don’t have the space to paint … I live in a small apartment … this is what I can afford, I put this on top of my dining table, and I paint them,’” Planas said. “He said, ‘Jon, you are original.’”

Planas’ hand-painted jackets went on to be worn by celebrities including Madonna, Cher and Cyndi Lauper. Later in his career, he contributed to the Absolut Vodka campaign, helping establish his reputation in the commercial art world.

Now based in Downtown Los Angeles, Planas continues to create art that reflects his personal history and interests. He said the Pride collection is meant to resonate beyond the LGBTQ+ community and reach a broader audience.

The pieces are created through a process that begins with hand-painted artwork, which is then transformed into prints and applied to clothing and other items. Planas described them as “graphic art-driven pieces meant to be seen, worn and felt.”

The collection will be available through his website and Etsy shop, with select works also available through his downtown studio by appointment.

With the launch, Planas said he hopes people not only wear the designs but also connect with their message.

“The designs that they’re wearing are meant to be joyful. They’re meant to be inclusive,” he said. “They’re meant to be strong designs, creating not only style, but a sense of connection between people …”

More Information

Jon Planas’s Pride collection will be available on Monday, June 1.

To see the clothing and art, visit jonplanas.studio or etsy.com/shop/JONPLANAS.