Smiley launches raft of collabs for 50th anniversary

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Feb 22, 2022

The Smiley brand is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and this week is launching a series of collaborations with brands across fashion, lifestyle, home and beauty. 

The Smiley icon has been a cultural influencer since the 1970s, making its presence felt in fashion, art, film, comic books and more. And the company has an extremely active collab programme with brands at multiple price levels. But it seems to be pulling out all the stops for its link-ups in 2022 given the anniversary.

To mark its half-century, it has enlisted graffiti artist André Saraiva to reimagine the Smiley logo. Active in the early Parisian graffiti movement, Saraiva became widely recognised for his cartoonish characters and his alter ego Mr A. 

The company also brought Colette co-founder Sarah Andelman on board to curate over 50 halo partnerships across 12 product categories. These include creative fashion, design, beauty and FMCG collaborations by brands including Raf Simons, Sandro, Karl Lagerfeld, Reebok and Dsquared2, among others. 

They’ve each designed a unique iteration of key products using a style guide created from Saraiva’s artworks. Stores getting involved include Galeries Lafayette globally, Nordstrom Special Project stores in the US, Urban Outfitters in Europe, Hanwa Galleria in Korea, Aizel in Moscow, Palacia del Herro, Mexico, and Cidade de Jardim in Brazil.

Smiley CEO Nicolas Loufrani said: “After the challenging last couple of years, what better way to navigate out of these times with this campaign that aims to reverse a global smile deficit, spread positivity and fill the world with smiles in 2022. This campaign has proved that Smiley’s unique, creative and positive symbolism continues to inspire some of the most influential artists, brands and tastemakers across the globe.”