Draft.

This weekend was a busy one for hype fiends round the world, news of the UNDFTD x AJIV was released, the 35th shoe of the Adidas 35th Aniversary project had it's launch, well atleast the treasure hunt began, the 2nd generation laser dunk released, DQM released their new line, better pics of the kaws x bapesta were released...But what I realised was this...

A Bellowing Ape.

A Bathing Ape closed the doors to its famous bape café last week. A sign of things to come? Or a sign of a movement towards higher ground? Nigo, founded the Japanese street wear label some 12 years ago at a time when a movement towards street culture was about to take over the world. Nigo and his close friend Hiroshi Fujiwara were at the forefront of a movement that would control hi end street culture and Japanese fashion for years to come. BAPE was the epitome of ‘cool’ for years, myself, as a huge fan of Nigo and Fujiwara and the movement they lead, have been wearing Bathing Ape as well as other harajuku street wear labels such as Neighborhood, Undercover and Head Porter for as long as I can remember, and I am certainly not the only one. There is a whole culture out there of young people obsessed with rare sneakers, Japanese street wear, urban vinyl and all things related, but over the last few years’ things have changed.

It’s pretty widely known now that every kid and their dog is a so-called ‘Sneakerhead’ now, I’ve had plenty of time to get used to that, and it doesn’t really bother me much now. But it’s what’s happening now to MY culture that really gets on my nerves. There was a day when there was a reasonably small group of us scattered around the world, connoisseurs of denim, sneaker and fashion enthusiasts obsessed with anything rare and of significance to the movement we were a part of. We were all pretty much ‘Geeks’, ‘fashion geeks’ though… We knew everything there was to know about Nike, Nigo, Fujiwara, Denim, Design and Urban Art. But we really were geeks! The common thought of the word geek, makes you think of a spotty faced kid stuck in front of a computer screen for 20 hours a day, playing dungeons and dragons, or creating computer programs, or whatever else might be deemed to boring for the rest of us. What we all did, was spend hours on the internet scouring the globe for rare shoes, developing relationships worldwide in order to give us access to products no matter where they released, in libraries or mills learning about denim and the history and processes behind them, saving money for the pure purpose of our yearly Tokyo shopping trip, or ogling toys and art deciphering how they would affect our thoughts as so called ‘futurists’. The only time we would go out partying was to develop those all so important relationships, there was no point in going out to show off our latest Japanese only released dunks, or Futura designed Maharishi M-65 jacket, who would understand or appreciate it?

I wonder how those computer geeks would feel if the mainstream population all of a sudden decided to enthral themselves in the past time of online games, code hacking and programming? It would be a little strange wouldn’t it... Everyone you knew would be starting his or her own software company or net café, and just maybe all of a sudden computer programming would be ‘cool’.

Those of us who were there to see the historic rise of Hiroshi Fujiwara and Nigo, and others like them, were also the ones who saw what they were doing as ahead of their time and as an industry that could easily be developed in their own locations, while we worry now about how our culture has become mainstream and possibly be ruined by it’s transition to the norm, we have only ourselves to blame. It was during those times we developed website forums such as Niketalk, in order for us to easily communicate with each other, News websites or Blogs such as ‘Rift-trooper’, or probably more importantly it was the entrepreneurial few of us like Fraser Cooke, and Eddie Cruz who opened retail stores and/or distribution outlets in their home towns to bring the brands and fashion they enjoyed so much to their peers.

To be continued...