Luxury brands are taking over the street art scene

LONDON: Tourists flock to London’s Shoreditch to admire the street art that coats the trendy neighborhood in a riot of colour. What they may not expect to find alongside works by Banksy or Mr Cenz are the spray-painted logos of Swatch and Christian Louboutin.

From London to Los Angeles and Sao Paulo, advertisers have latched on to graffiti’s visual pull and are paying spray-paint artists to add a gritty, urban edge to their brand campaigns.