About

Upper Class – Les Enfants Terribles is a Swiss brand that has its origins in the Zurich graffiti scene.

Upper Class was originally also the name of a 5-member graffiti crew, which gained an international reputation in the 90s beyond Zurich through its expressedattention to detail and perfection and has left its artistic traces in over a dozen countries around the globe.

In 2010, on the 20th anniversary, the first T-Shirt collection is launched.  From the vision of painting her works on the finest fabrics, an urban clothing brand was born and various collections have been presented since then. Fabrics have become our new “canvas”. We love to create modern clothing with classic fabrics that correspond to our own lifestyle.

The passion for details and perfection is still reflected in many design elements and the use of the best materials. In addition to design details that are a reference to the codes of the graffiti history of the brand (e.g. such as the embroidered barcode on the buttock pocket or the cracked feathers). We pay high attention to the many details of quality of workmanship that ensure the value and longevity of our jeans.

We like rough and solid fabrics for our garments , but we are neither lumberjacks nor cowboys, we move around the urban environments and cultures.  Our current style still credibly reflects our roots from the hip-hop and urban art culture, but in a subtle way that does not make you look “disguised” as grown up adult personality. Our design and quality philosophy is based on sustainability, long before this became the buzzword of the century- simply because it is independent of short-lived fashion trends.

Over the years we have developed 2 distinguished labels under the Upper Class umbrella:

Upper Class Rough and Upper Class Les Enfant Terribles.

On a hot July day in the summer of 1990, the two graffiti writers “Takit” and “Moniak” from Zurich founded a new crew. These two artists were joined by “Lord”, “Zombie” and “Zimtik”. “Upper Class” was born. From then on, the quintet was to leave deep traces in the history of the Zurich graffiti scene.

When, in 1992, “Mode 2 became the sixth and  last  member  to join  Upper Class, it was  like  a  knighthood  of  international graffiti culture. “Mode 2”, who lives in London and Paris, was considered one of the best graffiti artists in the world.

Thus, international contacts emerged and the sprayers from Zurich soon left their colorful traces around the globe. The artists were active in a dozen countries in Europe, in New York and Florida, as well as in Brazil and Ecuador. The New York city subway was also sprayed…

During and in connection to their joint activities on the streets and in the train yards of this world, the UC boys continued to evolve individually too. However, in completely different directions. The result after the millennium turn was the creation of numerous wall designs, exhibitions, live spray events – and logo, snowboard, -T-shirt  and CI designs for various  companies, posters, flyers, tattoos etc. . Although the wide variety of all these projects, they all have their common origins in the Zurich street graffiti art and their shared passion.

In the year 2010 the Upper Class boys celebrated their 20 years anniversary. This is the final trigger to finally create their own T-shirt collection. They always had the vision to paint the Upper Class style on finest fabrics. This was just the first step and UpperClass became soon a Streetwear brand. The design is visibly influenced  by the roots from the graffiti arts in many aspects. The passion for details  and perfection is the source of all our inspiration and makes the difference

In 2014 the brand refocused on premium quality jeans as core of the collection. Since then several limited signature Japanese denim jeans capsules have been successfully launched completed with some accessories like Caps and Belts.

In 2020 for the 10 years anniversary of the brand, we launched the Upper Class ROUGH collection, that features only products made from raw fabrics without any treatments afterwards like washing, bleaching, artificial abrasions. Each owner of a ROUGH piece will have the opportunity to write his very own story during his war journey. The collection will soon be extended with jackets and shirts.

Upper Class is still on the run.

The crossed feathers represent the writer tools that had connected and accompanied our community over the years. In the beginning it was the spray can, then the brush, the pen, the chalk or the bit with which we gave our thoughts and statements appearance and expression. To find a common symbol for these tools, we searched in the history of writing and painting. The quill pen was one of the first writing tools of the civilized world and is still used today in the form of the fountain pen. This gave rise to our symbol, the crossed feathers, which stands for the common ideas and sense of aesthetics.