When I first met NIGO, the Japanese designer guy that does Bathing Ape I thought to myself "ugh." I may not know that many people in Tokyo but do I really want to hook up with Nigo? The messiah for the balding underground? All the charming has-beens from Futura 2000 to The Beastie Boys worship this guy and he's so two years ago it hurts. It made me uneasy but Planet of the Apes is my favorite movie so I thought it might be worth a try.
Meeting Nigo is like catching someone stealing a CD from your house and asking him what the fuck he's doing. He spends most of the time looking at the ground and not answering you and you always feel like he's on the verge of an apology. I'mkind of a succker for weird boys so we ended up hitting it off. You'd like him too. Once I asked him who his favorite Japanese designer was and, after thinking about it for ten minutes, he said "Can it be an architect?" I gave him that option and he thought about it some more and said "I don't know."
Once we got over the fact that we communicate like two people that hate each other, we could relax and start talking ape. That's when I fell in love. This crazy motherfucker is the biggest collector of Planet of the Apes memorobilia in the world. He has 13 Ape stores, regularly puts on ape events (where 60 DJs recreate Planet of the Apes soundtracks) and designs his own line of ape clothes. Now Mo' Wax is putting out a CDof Ape Soundswith him and it's one of the best CDs I've ever heard.
Despite the hipster stigma, hanging out with Nigo makes you feel like you're part of an ape revolution. "It's just like hip hop has its own fashion and music," he says, "and the 60s mod music and fashion, as well as punk music and fashion, so there's ape fashion and therefore ape music, that's my theory."
YOLANDA LITWINENKO
