All you babies born in the year of the dragon are going to love this BAPE t-shirt ($94). The year of the dragon comes around every 12 years on the Chinese Zodiac, and 2012 is up next. Available from BAPE STORE Hysan, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.

(via Hypebeast)

A Bathing Ape (Bape) will be dropping a huge Star Wars collab on September 17th at BAPEXCLUSIVE Aoyama and BAPE STORE HARAJUKU. Check out more details of the Bape x Star Wars collection here.

WWD catches up with Bape founder Nigo to discuss the details of his recent sale of one of the largest Japanese streetwear brands in history. He admits publicly for the first time that managing a business was never his strong suit.

TOKYO — Nigo, the fashion and music impresario who founded Japanese street label A Bathing Ape, openly admits he’s never really had a head for business. That partially explains why Hong Kong-based retailer I.T Ltd. managed to snap up 90 percent of his company Nowhere Co. for just 230 million Japanese yen, or $2.8 million at average exchange rates. The company, which owns the brand known as Bape, has posted losses for the past two fiscal years and has racked up its share of debt.

Although Nigo downplayed the severity of Nowhere’s financial situation — even to the extent that he denied the company is actually losing money — he acknowledged that dealing with the administrative side of running a business has never been his strong suit.

“The company itself wasn’t in a very dire situation, but in the end I spent so much time looking after the management side that I wasn’t really able to do design,” he told WWD during an interview at his personal atelier, packed with what is only a portion of his extensive collection of vintage toys, art, pop culture artifacts and designer furniture. A statue of Colonel Sanders greets visitors at the entrance, and the space downstairs houses no less than a vintage Coca-Cola vending machine, a jukebox, a giant Apple Computer logo sign in neon lights and a series of paintings by New York-based artist Kaws featuring the Simpsons characters with missing eyes.

“Basically, I can’t do business. I’m not suited for it. I wish I had had a partner on the business side from the beginning,” said a surprisingly upbeat Nigo, whose real name is Tomoaki Nagao. The music and fashion impresario said he always thought he would sell the company he incorporated in 1995.
“I turned 40 [last December], there was the turning point of the brand reaching nearly 20 years since its establishment, and I think I made a forward-looking choice,” he said, acknowledging the brand’s popularity in Japan has faded in recent years. “About two or three years ago the brand and the company got too big for me to handle, plus there was the problem with the economy, and the number of things I wasn’t able to control on my own increased, so I started looking for a partner.”

Nigo said sales for the year ended Aug. 31 totaled about 5 billion yen, or $55.5 million. He said sales peaked in the 2006 to 2007 period, when Nowhere was registering an annual volume of about 7.5 billion yen, or $63 million.
In April 2009, Nigo stepped down as president and director of Nowhere in an effort to bring in more formal management, but that was a short-lived arrangement and he resumed his role at the helm of the company only a few months later.

I.T has said Nowhere posted a loss of 267.43 million yen, or $2.78 million, for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2009, and a loss of 119.05 million yen, or $1.32 million, for the year ended Aug. 31, 2010. Dollar figures were converted at average exchange rates for the periods to which they refer.
But Nigo expressed a different take on the numbers. “The accounting base is different, so I don’t think we made a loss. It’s difficult [to say]. But I never missed payments or delayed paying employees’ salaries,” he said, adding he’s kept his personal fortune and the company’s coffers separate.
Nowhere had net liabilities of 1.25 billion yen, or $13.88 million, as of Aug. 31. Also, I.T is taking on about 4.31 billion yen, or $52.79 million, of Nowhere’s outstanding bank loans and shop leases.

“I definitely didn’t want to file [for bankruptcy] under the Civil Rehabilitation Law, and I didn’t want to damage the brand,” Nigo said. “I had a strong feeling that I wanted the brand to survive, so the main thing was thinking what to do about that. I spent 20 years building it up, so it would be a real shame for it to disappear.”

As for the future of Bape, Nigo thinks I.T is the best company to grow the brand. Over recent years, Bape’s popularity has grown tremendously in China, even as the buzz has died down in Japan.

Nigo has agreed to serve I.T as Bape’s creative director for an initial period of two years, but he said he hopes his involvement continues beyond that.
In addition to his new role in I.T’s Nowhere, Nigo said he would continue working on his other projects, including his partnership with singer-producer Pharrell Williams on the Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream brands, which are part of a separate venture.

(Photo and story via Hypebeast ]]> http://www.kineda.com/nigo-talks-about-his-sale-of-bape/feed/ 2 http://www.kineda.com/bape-automobile-reversible-t-shirt/ http://www.kineda.com/bape-automobile-reversible-t-shirt/#comments Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:33:46 +0000 Terry Ng http://www.kineda.com/?p=7779

BAPE’s U.S. online store finally opened it’s doors last right with goodies like this Automobile Reversible Tee ($212). The design features the BAPE automobile logo chain stiched on side and solid on the other.

Bape Japan has released two Bapex 1 Clear watches for Summer 2009. Available in pink and green fluorescent colors at Bape flagship stores.

Bape has released t-shirt versions of the their popular animal inspired hoodies. Designs include the Shark, Panda, Cow and Tiger. Each are available in four different colorways, two white and two black. Available online and Bape Flagship stores.

Want to get your girl something other than flowers this Valentine’s Day? How about a Valentine’s Day t-shirt from A Bathing Ape (BAPE). Featuring Baby Milo and Lisa holding hands while sitting on an over-sized heart, it’s sure to be the perfect gift for the streetwear lover in her!

Available in white or black.

Japanese brand Bape has released their MA-1 Leather Bomber Jacket from the Fall/Winter 2008 collection. Traditional black and olive green colorways are readily available, but limited editions are also available in baby blue, purple, and orange.