N.E.R.D. & OMARION On Bape TV.

This is interesting. Although I wasn’t there, I know what this is, atleast part of it. This was the Bape event at club Womb in Shibuya from three Years ago. N.E.R.D. did a concert at a promotional event for their CD Fly Or Die and then hooked up with their homeboy, Nigo afterwards. The Omarion thing… I have no idea what that is. Probably just a photo shoot. At least that’s all it appears to be. Still cool though.

New Bape Store In Shibuya.

You can definitely be the ish at school after a short shopping spree through Shibuya in Tokyo. The area is home to some of the flyest shops in the world. Now, there’s a new Bape Store, Go! Ape, added to the Shibuya mix, located between my most favorite stationary store in the entire world, Shibuya Loft and the parco store. If you are looking for really (and I do mean really) cool mechanical pencils and ultra fine pens, markers and such, plus great notebooks, Shibuya loft is where to go. The bape store is just a short distance away.

There you can get some of designer Nigo’s t-shirts, polos, hoodies, jackets, jeans and accessories which are straight fire. The Bape line combines great designs, a nice, but simple, palette and great fabrics and a high level of quality, which is why it is such a hot global commodity. From there, you can hit the corner and head up to the Shibuya Apple store. Do some credit card damage there on,say, a Macbook pro and you are instantly the mack daddy (or mommy) on your campus. With the addition of Bape to Shibuya, urban one-stop shopping has officially been level upped.

Bape: Often Imitated, Never Duplicated.

I’ve been checking out casual wear and street wear today. In shops and online. It is incredible how many clothing lines are copying the Bape look and graphics. Some are just outright stealing. Last march while I was in Tokyo, I undertook my usual ritual. I threw on some of my Bape gear and headed over to the Aoyama shop to buy some of the latest. When I got there, I was surprised to see a mob outside the store.

I checked out what was going on an when I realized there was an exclusive going on, I whipped out my camera and started shooting. A Bape exclusive is the release of a limited edition by Bape’s designer, Nigo. He’ll design a limited number of a particular item and the Bape fans go wild in Japan. camping out, lining up to scoop up the goodies.

Although I’ve liked the clothing for awhile, I didn’t really understand the Bape hysteria. The Bape staffer in the brown striped shirt eventually came over to me and told me to stop shooting. I guess he was the only one that could speak english and the only one even close to my size.

After a brief discussion/argument while I continued to shoot (hey, I was on the opposite side f the street), I put my camera away and he told me how labels are copying Bape and the extremes they go through to get images of new Bape clothing. He said “don’t worry, I won’t confiscate your camera”. I said “That’s good, because I’d hate to have to kick your ass”. We eventually made nice.

Until he broke it down to me I didn’t really see the full scope of the Bape influence, and how much their clothing line was being ripped off. I get it now. People are copying the graphics, color palette even stealing the logo or just flat out bootlegging. Next time I go there I’m going to have to apologize to that guy for being such an uncouth gaijin. To all of you out there, do not support rip-off artist, bootleggers and the sort.

You can only buy Bape clothing at a Bape Boutigue and if your not in Japan, the only one you’ll find the U.S. is in New York City, Los Angeles is coming soon and there is only one Bape website, and you have to download that one. So… if you want Bape clothing, you can only get it from the source.

Bape.