There was a moment, about six years ago, when Nigo realized he felt old.
This is not a particularly unusual feeling for someone in his mid-40s, as he was then. But this was Nigo, one of the most influential figures in street wear, who helped turn a subculture into culture-culture, who practically pioneered the concept of selling $400 hoodies to lines of hungry, hungry hypebeasts.
Nigo (whose real name is Tomoaki Nagao) had been tapping into youth culture since 1993, when he founded A Bathing Ape (or Bape). Often seen wearing Bape’s signature camouflage pattern, along with diamond-encrusted necklaces, the mononymous designer and music producer had become a cool guys’ cool guy, a hero-collaborator to men such as Pharrell Williams, Kanye West and Virgil Abloh.