One of the beauties of punk music is how it thrives in brevity. The original Ramones album, one of the most important records in punk history, is, at a 14-song tracklist, an astonishingly quick 29 minutes, with the longest song running barely two and a half minutes. And yet, with four chords and a furious tempo, that was all they needed, and the record remains a landmark achievement of not just the genre, but music as a whole. It’s perhaps no wonder why punk music continues to influence fashion in this manner, as the structural parallels between the two presentationally share many sentiments. Haute couture runway shows usually don’t exceed 15-20 minutes, with the collection presented as a brief glimpse into the breadth of the designer’s mind, their history, influences, emotions, beliefs, and questions, all through clothes. And yet, if you’re a designer like Jun Takahashi, the fleeting manner in which fashion is presented doesn’t negate the possibility to impact and immerse the audience in the storytelling on the runway. This has made punk music the perfect and most prominent muse of Takahashi’s Undercover collections,  both having the same uncompromised essence that make them so viscerally fascinating, whether it be in the virulently anti-war crust punk tribute of the Spring/Summer 2003 ‘Scab’ show or the love letter to the CBGB’s scene of late 70s New York of Spring/Summer 2015’s “Adventure” collection.

The seed for Jun Takahashi’s interest in punk music was first harvested in middle school when he borrowed a friend’s copy of Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. “Its cover art, title, songs, sonic style—everything about it—made a lasting impression,” Takahashi reflected. Takahashi was enamored with the songs, the style, and the anti-imperialist and anarchist message snarled out by Johnny Rotten, and it would turn Takahashi into a superfan of the Pistols and Vivienne Westwood. In college at Bunka Fashion College, he would form the Tokyo Sex Pistols with Hikaru Iwanaga (who would found Bounty x Hunter), where he would earn the nickname “Jonio” or “Johnny”, after the Sex Pistols’ leading man. The TSS would also occasionally feature fellow Bunka student Tomoaki Nagao, later known as Nigo, on the drums. Takahashi and Nigo would become close friends, and in 1993, would open up their now-iconic store “NOWHERE” in Harajuku. It was here where Takahashi would first release Undercover, as well as begin to develop his punk-flavored design ethos. The same year Undercover premiered its first collection, Takahashi would also debut “Anarchy Forever Forever Anarchy” alongside Hiroshi Fujiwara. AFFA was directly influenced by punk style and Vivienne Westwood’s Seditionaries label in particular, with Karl Marx-printed sweatshirts and anarchy symbol motifs lifted directly from the Seditionaries archives. Though the label never reached the heights of Undercover, Seditionaries remained a recurring influence on Takahashi, and Takahashi and Fujiwara would come together in the mid-2000’s to pay tribute to the brand by publishing an archive of around 350 pieces they had collected.

Takahashi’s first few collections would draw heavily from the fashion of the early U.K punk scene, as well as the massively popular grunge scene of the early ‘90s. Fall/Winter 1994, Undercover’s debut, would make several thematic nods, from mohair dresses to fishnet face gaiters to velour military bombers, and Autumn/Winter 1995 “Speed” featured models with dyed hair and smoky eyes walking in paint-splattered jeans, buffalo-plaid suiting, and Undercover’s reinterpretation of the Jack Purcell sneaker. From there, punk’s influence would become a mainstay across Takahashi’s collections, such as a nod to punk's relationship with BDSM culture in Spring/Summer 1996 “Under the Cover”, with models in zippered leather masks and frayed and torn skinny black jeans with patches on them. 

The Spring/Summer 2003 “Scab” show was another that found punk music as its core prism for Takahashi’s stylistic vision to bounce off of, but was radically different in tone compared to Undercover’s show previous, due to the political climate. Premiering in Paris just a year after 9/11 and hot on the heels of the invasion of Iraq and the beginning of the Iraq War, S/S 2003 was an homage to the “crust punk” subgenre, a scene who’s music was known for themes of militarism, nuclear war, and anti-fascism, and the collection referenced the reconstructivist fashion of the genre, with the genre’s signature jigsaw-style exposed and raw stitching on a number of blazers, jeans, and dresses, as well as studs omnipresent on crust punk clothing found on skirts, boots, and wrist cuffs. But the most daring moment of the show was the finale, when Takahashi sent a cascade of models down the runway in a rainbow of chiffon burqas, beautifully offsetting the grimy, tattered visage of the rest of the show and making a powerful anti-war statement at a time when doing so was seen as precarious for a designer. The collection was a massive success, establishing Undercover in Paris and earning Takahashi widespread acclaim.

Building off this success, Takahashi would draw from punk to speak to much broader concepts, like with Fall/Winter 2004’s “But Beautiful” Show. With punk rock trailblazer and icon Patti Smith as the muse, this was another reference point that came from deep in the personal archives for Takahashi. In 2024, Takahashi would say of Smith’s work, “I heard Patti Smith’s Piss Factory in middle school, having only listened to British punk until then. Seeing her and listening to the song based on rumours that she was a representative of NYC punk left a lasting impact on me. Especially with Patti Smith and Talking Heads, unlike the punk fashion and spiky hair associated with British punk bands like Sex Pistols and the Clash, I briefly doubted: is this what punk looks like? But from her appearance, I sensed a deeper, intellectual yet rebellious punk spirit, which felt distinctly more profound and spiritually rebellious. The unique poetry that evokes a sense of rebellion while rooted in a beatnik base, and the original fashion style that is rough yet elegant, somehow conveying tension – these facets of her personality deeply resonate with my creative work.”

“But Beautiful” would draw inspiration from many of Smith’s key style choices, in particular her penchant for androgyny. From dinner jackets fastened with buttons and pins on the lapels to relaxed oxford shirts to tattered skinny jeans, the show takes many inferential and direct cues from Smith’s wardrobe, but the transience of the collection goes beyond the boundaries of gender, but the illusion of impermeable perfection in fashion as well, creating that image of rough elegance that Smith embodied and Takahashi loved. Many of the garments and footwear look heavily worn, discolored, beaten, and generally lived-in, but through small but pointed alterations of buttons, neckties, and tribal jewelry, can create a completely new and singular look defiant of gender and social conventions, much like Smith did when she came onto the punk scene.

“The series of music and lyrics known as punk, along with the associated thoughts and ideologies, have changed the way I view the world,” Takahashi would admit. Through fashion, we see Takahashi’s love for punk is simply not just as music, but as a movement, an ability to create a statement through art. This is an embodiment of Undercover’s slogan, “We Make Noise, Not Clothes”; the idea of fashion, art, and the avant-garde being synergistic forces, ones that can create waves in society and challenge the status quo. Though punk may not exist in the same manner it once did, with artists like Jun Takahashi still designing, the spirit that remains staunchly opposed to the conventions of society will forever remain timeless, always ready and armed in the fight against oppressive systems and ideas.

On December 11th, 2012, Virgil Abloh, at the time the creative director of Kanye West’s DONDA agency and part-time designer, would upload a video to Vimeo entitled ‘A TEAM WITH NO SPORT.’ The video opens on six models, donned in black graphic hoodies, in a room of stark-white walls, charcoal-colored stone floors, lounging lithely under fluorescent lighting as “Heart and Soul” by post-punk band Joy Division rhythmically thrums in the foreground. While the song plays, the video cuts to the models in different stances and colorways of hoodie, imprinted with a jersey-style PYREX 23 on the back, while legendary graffiti artist JIM JOE strolls behind them, tagging the walls with different phrases, “TIME WOUNDS ALL HEALS”, “DON’T SAVE MONEY TAKE A TAXI!”, “IS THE TRUTH IS THE TRUTH”, and finally, “PYREX VISION”. As the video comes to a close, every model except the center has their back to the screen, ‘PYREX 23’ flashing across their backs in tandem. The model in the middle stuffs his hands in the kangaroo pocket, drawing attention to the Renaissance artwork in the middle of his chest, Caravaggio’s The Entombment of Christ. The center model eventually follows suit, turning and revealing the back, and as the video fades, the viewer’s eyeline is dominated by ‘PYREX 23’.

The video was an introductory lookbook at the very first offerings of Abloh’s new brand, Pyrex Vision, but beyond that Abloh intended it as a much greater statement. “Initially, it was describing what was happening at the time. I looked at it as a moment to define what was happening within fashion while making something that represented the idea of unity that was coming from like-minded kids in different cities such as Tokyo, New York, or London to usher in a new generation, a new identity.” But to understand what exactly WAS happening, you have to go far away from the glamorous, fashionable worlds in New York or London, all the way to Madison, Wisconsin, circa 2002.

A young Virgil Abloh is in his final semester as an engineering major, and ends up enrolling in an art history class to complete the humanities requirement of his major. Abloh is extremely creative, but college is ultimately just a means to an end for him, a way to get a job that will make his parents happy. But after just one semester in an art history class, all of Abloh’s preconceptions would come crashing to the ground, thanks, in particular, to one artist. “Studying the Renaissance completely rewired my brain,” said Abloh. “I learned that Caravaggio had invented a new technique of painting, chiaroscuro, and it helped me see art as something that wasn’t just for rich people. That class made me look at my life differently, and it spurred me into architecture.” When discussing the subject in another interview, he described that shift in perspective, “I knew you could invent new ways if building - roads, bridges - but I didn’t know you could do that with art. Someone changed the history of art, changed everything that came after it.”

And when examining ‘A TEAM WITH NO SPORT.’, Pyrex Vision, and its evolution into Off-White, you can see the philosophy of Virgil Abloh begin to take shape. The appropriation, parodying, and re-imagining of existing imagery and iconography is an integral and fundamental element of streetwear culture. From the Supreme box logo being inspired by the works of conceptual artist Barbara Kruger to Erik Brunetti stealing the logo of Ford for his brand Fuct, the practice of borrowing without asking is as a practice decades old in the world of streetwear. Virgil fully understood this idea, but his proposition of it was arguably much more radical. “I’m obsessed with juxtaposition… I find those connections motivating: hip-hop kids wearing a Caravaggio painting with a Chicago Bulls number all set to a song from 1979.”

This juxtaposition, when seemingly incongruous elements of popular culture are presented not as asymmetrical, but complimentary, would be an essential aspect of Virgil’s design ethos throughout his career, and this concept is fully realized from moment Pyrex Vision is introduced. A Renaissance piece is printed on a Champion hoodie and displayed in front of a wall of graffiti. Young black men from Harlem can model clothes to a post-punk song by working-class kids from Manchester. References to Michael Jordan, Raekwon, and Caravaggio are compatible, and conveyed as culturally synonymous. While none of this is necessarily revolutionary by itself, it cannot be overstated that Virgil was doing this from the perspective of an African-American man, utilizing almost exclusively black models, attempting to infuse a luxury sensibility into garments and styles understood at the time to be casually affordable to the wider market. Examining the pantheon of legacy streetwear brands that have lasted for decades, whether it be Supreme, X-Large, Stüssy, Fuct, The Hundreds, or A Bathing Ape, when you look at their lookbooks and see models wearing baggy, oversized raw denim with butter-suede Timberlands, a vintage-style football jersey and a matching New Era fitted, one must understand these are styles originally popularized within predominantly black subcultures, whether it be hip-hop, gear, or graffiti, and are being sold by white or non-black men.

This isn’t to discredit any of these brands, their founders or their popularity, this is just simply the reality of the matter, a reality many of the aforementioned founders have acknowledged. So for Abloh to debut as aesthetically street-forward, but with prices that were geared more for the luxury market, truly was the greatest juxtaposition within Pyrex Vision. Though African-American street style everywhere has massively impacted the aesthetics of fashion as a whole, those who popularized it rarely had a representative of theirs within the higher fashion structures that often “adapted” and profited off those styles. With Pyrex Vision, Abloh offered an alternative to that, while undeniably tongue-in-cheek in composition, was undeniably more genuinely tapped into who and what was emerging in the cultures it was aesthetically representing, realized in the multiple members of the A$AP Mob modeling in ‘A TEAM WITH NO SPORT.’, as well as the featuring of the notoriously elusive and private graffiti artist JIM JOE.

In many ways, like Caravaggio, Virgil didn’t necessarily invent a new style, but offered a perspective on it that completely changed the perception of the style going forward. At Off-White, Virgil’s designs deftly wove the worlds of art, music, film, architecture, and fashion into one vision, and with releases like “The Ten” collection in collaboration Nike, solidified itself in the canon of gear culture with some of the most hyped and celebrated sneakers of the past couple of decades, most prominently Abloh’s reimagining of the iconic ‘Chicago’ colorway of the Air Jordan 1 model. Abloh also established a visual language at the brand, utilizing a thick Helvetica Bold font, a liberal usage of quotation marks, and a deconstructionist aesthetic, one that would inspire Abloh’s own legion of copycats and travel with him to his position as Creative Director at Louis Vuitton. Although Marc Jacobs may first introduced the company to street cultural elements like hip-hop and graffiti, as Louis Vuitton’s first ever black Creative Director, it was Virgil who presented these art forms in context, where black art and artists were always either a prominent influence, feature, or model in Abloh’s collections.

It was in this manner how, as Virgil might put it, someone changed the history of art, and everything that came after it. Not long after the debut of Off-White, Demna Gvasalia would introduce oversized graphic long-sleeve tees to his runways with his brand Vetements, and would eventually dominate the fashion world during his time as creative director at Balenciaga, generating a feverish cult around his post-apocalyptically grungy, streetwear-inspired aesthetics. Contemporaries of Abloh’s like Tremaine Emory, Martine Rose, and Grace Wales Bonner have also all become some of the most prominent and employed designers in the world, all while making clothing that not only fuses street-style silhouettes with luxury-level quality, but interprets and muses on the experiences within the vast and culturally and emotionally tangled web of the African diaspora, from the United States to the United Kingdom to the Caribbean. And while it would be a stretch to say none of this would’ve happened without Abloh’s rise to superstardom in the fashion world, he undoubtedly opened up the doors for more black creatives and designers to not only be see themselves in the world of luxury fashion, but to envision themselves changing the world of fashion and art as a whole in a way they never would have conceived before him. In many ways, he did for them what Caravaggio did for Abloh all those years ago at UW-Madison.

“I thought art was just a thing for rich people to put on their walls. I didn’t realize you could invent something in art. I knew you could invent new ways if building - roads, bridges - but I didn’t know you could do that with art,” Abloh admitted. Hopefully, thanks in part to Virgil, the next generation will continue to invent a new way of building fashion, too.

Read more

To try and define Björk as an artist is a near-insurmountable task, because even at 60 years old and five decades into her career in music, she still continues to evolve and explore new realms through her music, acting, poetry, and her fashion. Björk’s style, much like her music, has undergone many a metamorphosis over her career, and in many ways, Björk’s fashion has become almost inextricable from her music. From her album covers to her live performances, Björk’s fashion is, in many ways, a reflection of her music: mesmerizing with an air of mysticism, whimsy, and unmistakable beauty.

This is evident even in Björk’s earliest solo works. After recieving international attention for the first time fronting her band The Sugarcubes, Björk was poised to breakout, with a strong support base domestically and expectant ears awaiting around the world, she knew she had to make a definitive entrance with her first album. Hence, for the album cover alone, Björk commanded nothing but the best for her creative team. Among the elite enlisted was stylist Judy Blame, French photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino, and longtime fashion makeup artist Topolino. Björk detailed her vision to Blume, wanting to appear like a furry animal. And when Björk’s outfit for the shoot went missing the day of, Blume hurried the two from Mondino’s studios to that of Maison Martin Margiela, who outfitted Björk in an oversized, shaggy grey mohair sweater. The final cover was a black-and-white portrait shot of Björk, hands clasped, eyes literally sparkling and staring straight into the camera. When the album, definitively titled ‘Debut’, was released, it was an overwhelming commercial and critical success for Björk, and the album’s arresting artwork was seared into the minds of fans of music everywhere.

This loose framework of Björk in portrait, dressed in beautiful couture pieces became a recurring motif in Björk’s album art. Her second album ‘Post’ featured her in a custom airmail-envelope jacket by Hussein Chalayan, reflecting the album’s themes surrounding Björk’s emotions following moving to London. The cover of ‘Homogenic’, her third solo record, featured the iconic kimono designed by Lee Alexander McQueen, which has been speculated by photographer Nick Knight to have originated in McQueen’s own interest in Japanese culture and fashion, producing works with Commes Des Garçons that influenced Björk for the ‘Homogenic’ cover.

Her fourth album ‘Vespertine’ featured Björk in her infamous swan dress, designed by Marjan Pejoski and worn months before the albums release by Björk to the 2001 Academy Awards, causing such a media scandal and controversy that the dress now has its own Wikipedia page. Björk has said the dress was inspired by “Busby Berkeley and that sort of elegance.” And indeed, stars of Berkeley’s era like Marlene Dietrich were wearing dresses that were clearly the spiritual predecessors to Pejoski’s. Throughout her career, Björk has utilized couture fashion as a key element of her visual languages, and later covers in her career would see Björk donning the works of Bernard Wilhelm, Iris Van Herpen, and Jisoo Baik.

Björk’s music videos and live performances have also featured her in a dazzling array of couturiers. Longtime collaborator and friend Lee Alexander McQueen was responsible for many of her most iconic looks in the early 2000s, from the dress for her 2001 ‘Pagan Poetry’ music video to the bell-shaped dress covered in actual bells for her 2004 ‘who is it’ music video. Iris Van Herpen is another prominent designer in the tapestry of Björk’s visual mythology, particularly in the last decade. Beyond doing the dress for the cover of ‘Biophilia’ (the dress for which was featured in Björk’s ‘Moon’ music video as well), Van Herpen also did the clothes for Björk’s ‘Black Lake’ music video, a video that was featured at Björk’s career retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York back in 2015. Most recently, along with designer Olivier Rousteing, Van Herpen was tasked by Björk with creating the costumes for her 2025 documentary concert film, Cornucopia.

Let it not be said that Björk has done nothing but take from the fashion industry, however, as Björk was a model almost as much as she was customer in the earlier days of her music career. In the mid-’90s, Björk could be seen on the catwalks of Jean-Paul Gaultier and Hussein Chalayan. Björk hasn’t seen the catwalk much in recent years, but she still showed out at Paris Fashion Week in 2024, doing a DJ set with collaborator Arca, donning a wiry caged contraption fresh off the runway from fashion’s prince of darkness himself, Rick Owens.

At an age where most artists would either be retired, stagnant, or repetitive, Björk has continued to stay fresh through constant reinvention, and continues to command an audience just as massive as when she first started for continuing the be at the forefront of the avant-garde, especially through her fashion. Though there have been countless musicians throughout history who have made their style an iconic part of their persona, only Björk elevated it to make a part of personal storytelling, working with designers to create pieces that went in tandem with her, both sonically and emotionally. Björk is music’s greatest fashion icon because her fashion is not ancillary to her music, but complimentary to it. She’s worked in tandem with some of the worlds greatest designers to create otherworldly pieces that compliment the vast depth and complexity of her musical soundscapes. And as she continues to expand new worlds of possibility within her music, her fashion is doubtless to follow in breathtakingly exciting style.

In the nearly 5 decades since Apple’s inception, the company has grown into a globally imposing corporation with a near-monopoly on the mobile technological zeitgeist, whilst putting out an Orwellian image of cold, refined minimalism, effect without excess, an aesthetic carefully cultivated by the company’s founder and figurehead, Steve Jobs. Jobs, in his second tenure as CEO of Apple, would help redefine the company’s visual style via his own personal fashion, his iconic Issey Miyake turtlenecks, 501 Levi’s jeans, and New Balance 991’s branding an image of sophistication with a relaxed edge, pushing boundaries while remaining uncannily familiar. Jobs even attempted to implement this clean, utilitarian aesthetic into a uniform for Apple employees, but he was met with immediate pushback. “I came back with some samples and told everyone it would great if we would all wear these vests,” Jobs recalled in an interview. “Oh man, did I get booed off the stage. Everybody hated the idea.”

But after Jobs first departure as Apple CEO in 1985, Apple’s branding was suddenly at the forefront of the tech giant’s priorities. The company was desperate to brand an identity for itself outside Jobs’ shadow, and wanted something tangible to help promote Apple’s image on a more accessible level than buying one of their computers tagged at a premium price. Thus, in 1986, “The Apple Collection” was introduced to the public, a line from Apple that offered apparel and accessories, but also tried to present Apple as not just a tech company, but (if you can believe it) a lifestyle brand. The Apple Collection offered furniture, luggage, watches, watches, shaving kits, even a windsurfing sailboard. Through a modern lens, this seems like nothing short of ludicrous from a company who releases the same five products every year with a slight update and a price markup. But in 1986, Apple was a company who had just lost its founder, and had to prove it was bigger than its past.

The Apple Collection is Apple’s attempt to shift from Steve Jobs to Ralph Lauren; trying to create a brand that is not simply about technology, but an all-encompassing lifestyle of travel, sport, and tasteful, luxurious design. This is made apparent in Apple’s lookbook for the collection, with images of models windsurfing, casually leaning against bikes in the sunset, and posing in front of mansions and Cadillac Coup Deville’s. Apple, like Ralph Lauren, wanted to present a lifestyle that people could not only identify with, but aspire to.

Apple’s own aspirations to become the Ralph Lauren of the tech world are even more explicit in the collection’s apparel. In contrast to the casual cosmopolitan look presented by Jobs in the later years of the company, the garments presented in “The Apple Collection’‘ were more geared towards a sportier, preppier aesthetic, with a campaign shoot featuring popped-collar polos, cross-body-tied sweaters, and golfer style snapback caps and visors. The company even enlisted the likes of Patagonia and The North Face to create some of the pieces in an attempt to give the collection a functional, rugged edge.

The color palette of the collection also differs drastically in comparison to Jobs’ later vision, with 80s camp on full display with vibrant, popping colors and oversized graphics present on many of the pieces. Though the collection definitely looked the part of the time, it was ultimately its own recognizance that led to The Apple Collection’s downfall. In the opening to the lookbook to The Apple Collection, there is a statement from “the people at The Apple Collection” that goes as such: “At The Apple Collection we find manufacturers who make their products the way we make our computers. We put our logo on these products because we appreciate their quality, and think you will, too. They come from such outstanding companies as Tiffany, Braun, Bree, Lamy, Mistral, Honda, and others you might not be familiar with yet. They’re the kinds of products we’d make ourselves.”

And the last sentence reveals the problem inherent with the rest of the statement: Apple wanted to create the appearance of a lifestyle brand without actually CREATING anything. While it’s admirable that Apple collaborated with these brands to make products of actual quality, it ultimately amounts to nothing more than Apple trying to wear these brands identity as their own, and the dissonance between the product and Apple as an entity ultimately proved too great for the general consumer to overcome at the time.

However, in the modern age, many of these items have come to be treated as historical relics due both to their rarity and their relative abnormality in the canon of Apple’s history, with many of the pieces selling today for hundreds of dollars on secondary markets. And despite the collection’s lack of success, it would not be Apple’s last venture into the world of fashion. Steve Jobs would try his hand at it again on his return to Apple, following in line with the more casual, sporty vibe of The Apple Collection, introducing Apple-branded Fred Perry velour tracksuits and a selection of varsity and denim jackets. Though these pieces didn’t do much at the time either, they too have found renewed interest in the current era thanks to being worn by celebrities like Drake. As of late, Apple’s only real connection to the fashion world has been a continuing collaboration with French luxury house Hermés, creating custom casing and bands specifically for Apple products.

The Apple Collection’s legacy still lingers today however, and as good taste has given way to nostalgia and Apple’s aesthetic has become the complete inverse of what is presented in The Apple Collection, the collection seems to a recall a history of a friendlier, more down-to-earth rendition of Apple that, of course, never existed. But as Ralph Lauren once said, “I believe one can live many lives through personal style. Every day is an occasion to reinvent yourself.” Maybe if Apple just designs more rainbow-logo-emblazoned coffee mugs, they can reinvent themselves too.

Back when Nigo was still at the helm of A Bathing Ape in the early 2000s, he turned a massive Tokyo mansion into something that was part-living space, part-museum, holding some of the largest grails and pieces of rare art to ever be placed in any personal collectors house. From walls covered in original artwork from Warhol to KAWS to furniture ranging from couches complete with an all-over BAPE camo print to iconic postmodern works like the Eames chair, the furnishings were only the beginning. Nigo is known to be a massive collector, and at his house, the fruits of his scavenging were on display, with cases of ultra-rare collectibles from Star Wars, The Simpsons, Peanuts and numerous other pop cultural cornerstones lining the hallways. "No one has more of anything than this dude," his close friend and collaborator Pharrell Williams has remarked. "He is a connoisseur of all the great things in the world."

Purchased in 2003, the home was a canvas that painted the history of Nigo and his swath of influences that he drew from, and became one of the greatest curations of art, fashion, and popular culture to exist in a single space. From vintage cars to rare toys to priceless artworks, Nigo’s home was truly a testament to the expansiveness and lavishness of Nigo’s taste. "When you start, you can't really stop. When you get hooked on something, you have to keep going," Nigo admitted. "It gives me a nice feeling that life is easy, because everything most want to be near is all around me. Everything I want to get at is immediately within my reach." And indeed, Nigo would capitalize on that proximity at the head of BAPE, as many of the brand’s collaborators can be seen adorning the wall of the mansion. 

Since he has moved, Nigo has auctioned off much of his awe-inspiring collection through Sotheby’s to record-setting amounts, with a Simpsons painting done by collaborator and friend KAWS entitled “THE KAWS ALBUM” selling for a massive $14.8 million dollars at auction in 2019. This only scratches the surface of the breadth and value of his collection, having amassed everything from 1-of-1 bootleg Stüssy Carhartt staff jackets to guitars used by The Beatles themselves, Nigo’s house was a veritable trove of historical artifacts of popular culture.

From t-shirts hand-printed by Andy Warhol to some of the rarest vintage denim on Earth to originals of some of the most innovative furniture in design history, Nigo’s house was akin to a pop cultural Smithsonian. From an unparalleled Star Wars collection, of which 600 items fetched a flooring $500,000 dollars at Sotheby’s in 2015, to a cache of esoteric music memorabilia like an original Beastie Boys guitar or a denim blazer made for Bing Crosby by Levi’s. Nigo’s house was, in this regard, far before its time, with a house that fused aesthetics from every realm of Nigo’s passions and manifested itself in every facet of the house. When Nigo had to sell A Bathing Ape in 2011 to the I.T Group, they acquired ownership of the house. In the years since, A Bathing Ape has officially immortalized the house as a private museum, renamed as ‘BAPELAND’. Preserved as accurately as possible, the rooms of vintage road signage, soda advertisements, Pop Art, and endless BAPE ephemera are still made available for public viewing on rare occasions, most recently for A Bathing Ape’s 20 Year Anniversary.

And though Nigo has since sold many of the pieces in his collection, ‘BAPELAND’, as it stands now, is still a collector’s paradise, and stands as an achievement starkly against the paradigm of modern design. In a world where minimalism was slowly taking hold and interior design became more stripped down, sterile, and streamlined, Nigo’s Harajuku mansion was almost defiantly rooted in a vibrantly plastic nostalgia, one where Pop Art, sci-fi, cartoons, fashion, and music could all be celebrated in the same space. Whether you’re a collector, kid, or crazed hypebeast, Nigo’s Harajuku mansion truly has something for everyone to connect with, and still stands as one the greatest archives of popular culture in the world.

Jamaica is a nation that, despite being home to just under 3 million residents, has had a massive impact on music, and has birthed multiple genres that have become beloved worlds over and continue to permeate the sounds of modern music everywhere. From ska to reggae to dub to dancehall, Jamaican music has become almost synonymous with the country’s cult…

Read more

SERK is a graffiti writer who has lived in the Chicagoland area his entire life, and his ascension to the upper ranks of the city’s graff writers is not a fluke by any means. For over a decade, SERK’s bombed everything from metro to freights to the top floors of buildings. Repping the legendary X-Men Crew, SERK has solidified himself as one of the most fearless and prolific writers in the Windy City over more than a decade, and his style continues to influence many of the city’s writers, new and old. Phorin Collective presents a conversation with SERK, delving into his beginnings in graffiti and his storied history within Chicago’s graffiti scene.

Read more

Read more