by ramseames » Sun Feb 09, 2014 11:25 am
Balloons I don't feel 100% right now so I'm just gonna run through NBHD quick and then tomorrow I'll go over what I know about soph aight?
Founded in 94 by Shinsuke Takizawa. The name literally refers to the neighborhood of Harajuku, where him and his friends were living at the time (and where the vast majority of Tokyo's fashion culture is situated nowadays). The general concept behind the brand is doing relatively basic pieces with influences from motorcycling (they actually have helmets for sale) and then to a lesser extent other subcultures/themes like the military, trad wear, etc. They have their mainline which is quite american in terms of where those influences are originating, they have Luker which is supposed to be a little less expensive and looking towards Britain instead of the US, they have SVG archives which I don't really understand the distinction between mainline and it but they release some of the best pieces under it so its worth mentioning, and then they have their kid's line One Third, literally referring to the scale of the pieces. They've got 10 stores of their own, 2 flagships (harajuku and shibuya, like a 15 min walk apart), and then 8 stores in Japan and China called Hoods. They collaborate occasionally, they did converse first strings recently, some limited edition denim for Heineken, a rain smock with cav empt, they do loads of sunglasses with Effector, and probably some others.
No different from any of the other brands at this price point/doing this sort of thing where a much greater portion of what western stockists carry than they should is just screenprinted tees and sweats and stuff. Which is a shame, because the things they do really well are stuff like the flannels, denim, and big shitty looking milsurp-esque coats and such. Quality is generally quite high, its not a repro brand and some things come predistressed, but its all "worth" the price and probably a lot better value than most. Plus there's a large secondhand market for it and you can find things in good-decent condition for fractions of MSRP in places like:
Album of some of my favourite/the most unique pieces they've done:
Lookbook links:
Short interview that haven did with him: