The busy shop floor of Uniqlo in Oxford Street, flagship of the cheap-and-cheerful chain store is full, on this rainy afternoon, of skinny Scandinavian teenagers, and a new range of T-shirts is flying off the shelves. Admittedly they are knocked down to a mouth-watering £9.99, but something else strikes the eye. In place of the bland logos of the sports brands that have dominated high street fashion for an age, these are wild, colourful designs of what appear to be strange voodoo rituals, and slogans that might have come from the graffiti-strewn walls of some hip downtown neighbourhood.

That is, on close inspection, exactly where they have come from. The designs are part of a collection based on the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, pioneers of New York’s urban art movement of the 1980s. Both artists were radical in method as well as intent, but were quickly absorbed into art’s commercial mainstream. They hung out with Andy Warhol – was there ever a shrewder setter of trends? – and acquired a cult following, which duly turned into a wider following, with the consequence that their works today sell for millions.