“NOT TEACHING

Now, something of a streetwear elder—a Star Wars fanatic, he recently half-jokingly referred to himself as Yoda—Nigo, born Tomoaki Nagao, has moved on to focus on a calmer brand, the unpretentiously-named Human Made, as well as serve as the artistic director of Kenzo, the storied if niche French fashion house. Long gone is the time of BapeSta -mania, when a fresh colorway of his signature sneaker—a Pop Art patent leather take on the shape and feel of the classic Nike Air Force 1, with versions made in collaboration with Kanye West, SpongeBob, and D.C. Comics—would send kids into a fever just to get their hands on a pair, an early portend of the ridiculously long lines that now snake out of the Supreme store with every single new drop of its clothing. While in the past, Nigo has had a preference for tropes that are somewhat aggressive—military camouflage and illustrations of gorillas—the Human Made logo is encased inside a sweet red heart, and the most recurring print at Kenzo is a joyful motif of a poppy flower.

If he was once the master of hype, Nigo now seems content to create in his little—though still celebrated—corner of the world. Selling a majority stake in BAPE in 2011 before leaving the brand for good in 2013, he was put off by how big it had become. “I look back on the BAPE era as a lost battle. But it taught me a lot,” he tells me. Nigo had what some would describe as a mid-life crisis after his departure and even began to wonder whether his time in streetwear had passed, until his longtime friend and collaborator Pharrell Williams encouraged him to get back in the game. Now, he says the end of that life helped him figure out the future. “In the end I spent so much time looking after the management side that I wasn’t really able to do design,” he explained to WWD at the time.

Turning away from trends to focus more squarely on quiet quality, Human Made, then, has been a humble reshuffling of priorities, allowing him to take control and stay focused, a streamlined collection of classics like warm, cozy hoodies and varsity jackets, festooned with ducks, Valentine hearts, and bunny rabbits, that is more of a cottage industry than a massive mainstream endeavor. “He has a completely vertical fashion brand,” the late Abloh observed in 2020. “In one building, he designs, does the photo shoot, and does the manufacturing. I was impressed by that.”

The line is filled with an array of cute little home and decor products with playful appeal: a papier-mâché sunglasses stand in the shape of a bulldog’s head, enamel mugs and plates for camping, a bottle of sake, a banana hanger for the kitchen (complete with two replica bananas), a paper weight in the shape of a melting ice cream cone, and a windchime covered in polar bears and tigers. They’re silly ideas that feel special, collectible, one-of-kind, tailor made for the quirkiest amongst us. “I wanted to do something that was the antithesis of the way that fashion has gone, where everything’s fast fashion, disposable: buy, use them, throw them away,” he said in 2012. “I wanted to make something that had some weight and value to it—the materials used in the method of construction. This is more about the personal connection to the clothing.”

Nigo likes to make clothes for and with his friends, a tight, ragtag crew of loyal like minded misfits that he’s assembled over the years, including Pharrell (they founded the cult clothing line Billionaire Boys Club together in 2003), Kanye, Pusha T, Tyler, the Creator, A$AP Rocky, Lil Uzi Vert, Abloh, and Kid Cudi, who wore a Nigo-designed blue Kenzo cape and tuxedo to the most recent Met Gala. Abloh, who once referred to Nigo as a mentor, brought him in to collaborate on collections for Louis Vuitton. And Cudi, who actually worked as a retail employee at the New York BAPE store, gets starry-eyed even speaking about Nigo. “I’m always in awe when I’m around him, in his office and atelier,” the artist told me earlier this year as he prepared for the annual fashion event. “I’ve never seen anybody that has a world designed quite like Nigo’s.”

He has made time and space to indulge in more off center creative projects, like a restaurant called Curry Up he’s opened in Tokyo and I Know Nigo, an album he put out earlier this year. On it, he is the maestro, cooking up beats with Pharrell, Kanye, and Tyler, and calling in guest verses from Uzi, Gunna, Clipse, and Rocky. Rolling Stone described it “a collaborative testament to the genuine admiration Nigo has earned for himself in the world of hip-hop.” If fashion is his day job, then music—and hip-hop specifically—has always been his wellspring, the place where he finds inspiration and energy. In turn, he’s been embraced by rappers in a way few designers have, and practically defined hiphop style in the 2000s, as important to the culture as Baby Phat or Sean Jean; it was Lil Wayne constantly wearing Nigo’s clothes (particularly his iconic full-zip hoodie) that really made the designer a household name, and he has turned up as a reference since in lyrics by everyone from Soulja Boy to Drake. “Nigo is just as important and significant to hip-hop as Pharrell, or Slick Rick, or Kanye,” Rocky once said.