Death NYC — Chanel Sunglasses

What You Are Getting

A unique 1/1 original work by Death NYC — not a numbered edition print, but a one-of-a-kind hand spray-painted mixed media piece that exists as a single copy anywhere in the world. The composition features a glamorous pop-art portrait wearing oversized Chanel sunglasses with dripping CC logos on the lenses, layered strands of oversized pearl and red bead jewelry, set against a quilted Chanel pattern background with the brand name repeating along the borders and the signature camellia flower in the upper left corner.

Bold red graffiti text is hand-applied across the entire surface in spray paint — raw, dripping, and deliberately transgressive against the polished fashion-illustration aesthetic beneath it. This is the defining tension of the piece: the underlying image is refined, commercial, and aspirational; the graffiti overlay is aggressive, immediate, and confrontational. The spray paint sits on top of the printed base layer, meaning you can see and feel the physical texture of the hand-applied marks — this is not a reproduction of graffiti, it is actual graffiti applied by the artist’s hand.

The piece is signed in pencil and dated 2018, marked as edition 1/1, and bears the embossed Death & Co. authentication seal. Presented in a clear acrylic sandwich display with brushed steel standoff bolts — a contemporary museum-style format that lets the mixed media textures breathe. The display can stand upright on a shelf or desk, or be wall-mounted.

Item Details

About the Work

The Chanel Sunglasses composition is one of Death NYC’s most visually striking fashion-appropriation works. The base image draws directly from the language of luxury fashion illustration — oversized sunglasses with dripping CC logos, multi-strand pearl necklaces, quilted handbag texture as background pattern, the camellia flower motif — every element screaming aspirational Parisian luxury. Then the artist takes a spray can and obliterates it with raw red graffiti, creating a physical collision between high fashion and street culture that you can see and touch.

The hand-painted spray element is what elevates this piece above Death NYC’s standard edition prints. You can see the texture of the spray paint sitting on top of the printed surface — the drips, the overspray halos, the varying density of the red pigment where the artist moved the can closer or farther from the paper. Each stroke is unrepeatable. This tactile dimension is absent from the numbered editions and is the fundamental reason why 1/1 works sit at the apex of any artist’s market hierarchy.

The 2018 production date places this in Death NYC’s most active and commercially significant period. The dripping CC logo on the sunglasses lenses is a recurring Death NYC motif — the luxury brand literally melting under the heat of the street art gaze. The pearls read as both fashion accessory and ironic commentary on value: what’s more precious, the manufactured luxury object or the unique artist intervention applied on top of it?

About the Artist

Death NYC is an anonymous New York City-based street artist who emerged in the early 2010s as a major force in the post-Banksy wave of appropriation-driven urban art. The name itself is an acronym — Don’t Easily Abandon The Hope — and the visual vocabulary encompasses luxury fashion brands, celebrity portraits, Disney characters, and the full canon of Western art history remixed through a distinctive aesthetic that ranges from screen-printed editions to hand-painted unique works like this one.

Death NYC’s work has been featured in Vogue, Artnet, Hypebeast, and gallery exhibitions across Europe and the US. The 1/1 mixed media works represent a small and highly sought-after subset of the artist’s total output. While the numbered editions circulate freely on the secondary market, the unique hand-painted originals rarely surface for sale — most are held by private collectors who acquired them directly from the artist or through gallery relationships.

What Is Included

• Death NYC “Chanel Sunglasses” hand spray-painted mixed media original, edition 1/1
• Signed in pencil and dated 2018
• Embossed Death & Co. authentication seal on paper
• Acrylic sandwich display with brushed steel standoff bolts
• Display stands upright on desk/shelf or can be wall-mounted

Shipping

Ships within 1–2 business days via UPS with full insurance coverage from San Francisco, CA.

Given the unique and irreplaceable nature of this 1/1 original, packaging is white-glove standard: the acrylic display is wrapped in foam, bubble-wrapped, and double-boxed with rigid corner protection and fragile labeling throughout. Signature confirmation required at delivery.

International buyers welcome — message us before purchase for a custom shipping quote.

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Browse our full collection of authenticated Death NYC originals and editions, Shepard Fairey screen prints, KAWS figures, and signed memorabilia. New listings added weekly.