Hiroshi Fujiwara was born and raised in the quaint coastal city of Ise, Mie in 1964. He moved to Tokyo at the age of eighteen and immersed himself in the city’s music and fashion scenes. As a teen, Fujiwara fell in love with Punk Rock which inevitably led him to London. While there, he got the chance to meet the legendary Malcolm McLaren , manager of The Sex Pistols and co-founder (alongside Vivienne Westwood) of SEDITIONARIES. McClaren told Fujiwara that he found London boring at the moment and that he should instead visit New York. Fujiwara soon made the trip across the pond where he was introduced to hip-hop. A local friend lead Fujiwara to The Roxy Theatre where he discovered genre pioneers Afrika Islam and Kool Lady Blue and immediately fell in love. Fujiwara started ferrying American records back to Tokyo, and in doing so became a vital link between American hip-hop and the emerging scene in Tokyo. He learned to DJ, playing sets across Tokyo and introducing a new generation to the genre and even formed a hip-hop group, Tiny Panx with several friends.
In contrast to Japan’s most prestigious designers—Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake—Fujiwara was more interested in street and vintage clothing than Parisian runways. While hip-hop and skateboarding were still barely connected at the time, Fujiwara sought a way to marry all of his divergent interests together. He thought he could transform his eclectic taste in music and clothes into a broader youth-oriented lifestyle. His vision began to take shape after a chance meeting with Shawn Stussy while on a trip to the US. The Stüssy founder made Fujiwara an honorary member of the Worldwide Stüssy Tribe, an honor that resulted in him getting shipped boxes of free Stüssy product to wear and distribute amongst his friends in Tokyo.
Fujiwara’s success is best explained by his endless connections in increasingly disparate disciplines. In the early ‘90s, the nascent state of the internet meant that information (particularly pertaining to street culture) was primarily transferred by magazines and word of mouth. Given his constant travels, Hiroshi became the link between Japan and the West. Frequent trips to the London, Paris, New York and Los Angeles provided Fujiwara a global network of friends and conspirators. He began to chronicle his travels in local magazines, most notably his column “Last Orgy” in Takarajima . A guide to the latest trends in street culture—which Fujiwara picked up from his travels abroad—“Last Orgy” recommended everything from skateboards and clothes to DJ equipment. The column was gospel to Japanese youth and lead to a regular feature in Popeye titled “Last Orgy 2.”
Always educating the next generation, Fujiwara launched the career of two of Japan’s most celebrated designers when he helped Jun Takahashi and NIGO open seminal streetwear Harajuku boutique NOWHERE in 1993. Prior to NOWHERE, a young Tomoaki Nagao (aka NIGO), aspired to become just like his idol, Fujiwara. Coincidentally, Nagao was given the nickname NIGO (Japanese for Number 2) by a local store clerk due to his physical resemblance to Fujiwara. Eventually, NIGO was even hired to work as Fujiwara’s assistant and the two’s budding relationship laid the foundation for NOWHERE.
Jun Takahashi and Fujiwara’s mutual love for Punk resulted in a joint clothing line, AFFA (Anarchy Forever Forever Anarchy). Produced in single runs and never reissuing designs, AFFA was directly influenced by Seditionaries—Mclaren’s line in collaboration with Westwood that Fujiwara discovered firsthand in London. Apart from Takahashi and NIGO, Fujiwara was a pivotal figure in Shinsuke Takizawa’s career—founder of Neighborhood —securing him his first job in the clothing industry, designing merch for music label Major Force. Beyond his personal contributions, Fujiwara’s role as a mentor to the next generation of Ura-Harajuku helped cement his title as the “Godfather of Streetwear.”
Launched in 1990, GOODENOUGH—Fujiwara’s first solo venture—was inspired by two of the creative’s favorite labels at the time, Stüssy and English BMX label Anarchic Adjustment. While each brand was focused around its respective culture, Fujiwara was more comfortable pulling from street fashion, albeit stuck to a similar aesthetic as both. GOODENOUGH, or GDEH in short, utilized pop-culture inspired graphics courtesy of noted designer Sk8thing . Early designs included everything from Nascar-style logos to psychedelic illustrations of Karl Marx. While GOODENOUGH quickly attracted a cult following of devoted youth, Fujiwara did not initally acknowledge his role with the brand. Instead of leveraging his name, Fujiwara did the opposite. Speaking with Hypebeast , he said “If I attached my name to the brand, only people who liked me would buy it. They wouldn’t be able to see the clothes for what they were.”
Priced similarly to imported designer goods—rather than competing streetwear labels—Fujiwara’s goal was to elevate GOODENOUGH product and make it feel like something special and prestigious. A precursor to hype, items were released in very limited quantities that often sold release day—a formula closely replicated by brands such as WTAPS, Neighborhood and A Bathing Ape, all admirers of Fujiwara’s work. Even before Supreme opened on Lafayette St. in 1994, Fujiwara was manipulating supply through scarcity, the basis of the streetwear market today. Former Stüssy creative director Paul Mittleman described the brand simply : “I think the simple ideology of GOODENOUGH was appropriate—the majority of what was around was simply not ‘good enough.’”
GOODENOUGH attempted a global expansion, first with a London boutique under the GOODENOUGH U.K. label, and then a diffusion label, RESONATE GOODENOUGH, in 2004, however is currently inactive. While GOODENOUGH frequently worked with other Japanese streetwear labels, its most notable collaboration was two highly sought after Supreme tee’s in 2000 that featured a simple reflective 3M print design merging the two brand logos. In 2016 the brand relaunched with a capsule collection in collaboration with UNDEFEATED, a revisitation of its ‘90s roots.
Today, Fujiwara’s seal of approval is a double lightning bolt, the logo for his brand Fragment Design . Despite the barebones three man team, the company has an outsize influence on street fashion and culture worldwide. Why the meager operation may seem ill-equipped to work with some of the biggest names in fashion, Fujiwara explains it as such : “Some people work like a band, some work like an orchestra—I work solo.”
From designer fashion to mass-market consumer products, Fragment Design has worked with everyone from Louis Vuitton and Moncler to Levi’s, Starbucks and Pokemon. Fragment’s seemingly disparate partners, unconventional design approach and unpredticable partnerships is reflected by its equally puzzling website , featuring glitchy video artwork by Fujiwara. Titles like “Capitalism Brought By Communism” and “This Machine Kills Fascists” flash across the screen—ironic considering how co-branded Fragment products tend to fly off of store shelves.
Fujiwara’s approach to collaboration is based around personal relationships more so than brands themselves. Fujiwara evaluates each collaboration based around who’s controlling the partnership and how easy it will be to work with one another. Fujiwara prefers to establish an atmosphere of mutual respect and like-minded attitudes before proceeding.
With an innate understanding of the current cultural zeitgeist, Fujiwara is acutely aware of what is currently missing, and how he can contribute. Explaining Fujiwara’s skill set, Fraser Cooke—global director of influencer marketing and collaborations at Nike—said , “Hiroshi has remained relevant for so long because he has good taste and a very acute sense of timing—he’s good at partnering with the right people at the right time.” These people and partnerships were compiled into Hiroshi Fujiwara: Fragment , a comprehensive history of the creatives work published by Rizzoli in 2014. The hardcover book, chronicles over thirty years of Fujiwara’s life, with sections on his artwork, graphics, sneakers, product design and curated personal effects. Over the book’s 200 plus pages, Fujiwara’s immense contribution to the culture is painfully clear.
Fujiwara’s philosophy is dictated by his idea that “a designer is not a designer anymore.” Fujiwara disrupts the expected in order to invigorate customers, his relationship with Nike a perfect example. The H in Nike HTM , the long-term collaboration without traditional deadlines or budget constraints between Fujiwara, Tinker Hatfield and Mark Parker is one of the most celebrated in Nike’s history. With over 30 products released during its tenure, HTM has a proven track record of disrupting the sneaker industry with original silhouettes and unexpected twists on classic.
HTM released its first product as a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Air Force 1 . Rather than a radical redesign, the first HTM model elevated the Air Force 1 into something more akin to a luxury item, years before the high-fashion sneaker trend truly took off. Premium leather, contrast stitching and a custom toe box shifted expectations on what the Air Force 1 could be. Nike HTM continues to combine premium materials with cutting edge technologies to push the boundaries of what Nike can achieve. The limited nature of all HTM releases gave Nike the opportunity to test out ideas in a controlled manner before launching them for a wider audience, and helped Fujiwara become household name among sneaker collectors outside of his native Japan. Fujiwara’s work with HTM set the stage for future Nike releases under his own Fragment imprint, most notably the Fragment Air Jordan 1 in 2014 which resells for thousands of dollars.
Among the countless projects that Fujiwara has launched, one of the most unconventional is fragrance brand Retaw. Co-founded by Fujiwara in the upmarket Aoyama area of Tokyo in 2009, Retaw (“water” spelled backwards) makes home goods and ephemera including scented body washes, creams, lip balms, candles, room tags and even air fresheners for cars. The collection combines minimal aesthetics with a unique selection of proprietary scents. Apart from scents, Fujiwara’s fingerprints are all over Head Porter—an offshoot of luggage company Porter founded in 1998 under Fujiwara’s direction. While the label shares production techniques with its famed parent company, the products are more streetwear focused and trend oriented, targeting a younger demographic through a tightly controlled distribution network worldwide.
Between 2014-2016, Fujiwara opened The POOL aoyama, a retail concept that flipped the already ridiculous Tokyo shopping scene on its head. The POOL—a reference to its location, inside the abandoned pool area of a private residential building—fully embraced its surroundings, using the drained pool as a focal point of the interior. The retail store offered items from The POOL Aoyama in-house line, as well as brands such as Supreme, N. Hoolywood and UNDERCOVER . After closing The POOL, Fujiwara opened The Parking, a temporary boutique located underground the Sony building in Ginza. Converting an empty parking garage into an unique shopping experience, The Parking featured special collaborations, limited drops and even food courtesy of Café de Ropé, a restaurant specializing in creative takes on toast. Although it shut down in 2017, The Parking (as well as The POOL before it) showed Fujiwara’s ability to more than cultivate product, but curate an idyllic shopping experience.
Fujiwara’s most celebrated recent endeavour, however, is no doubt his collaboration with Louis Vuitton. As he’s want to do, Fujiwara worked with close friend Kim Jones—hen artistic director of Louis Vuitton menswear—on a capsule as part of Louis Vuitton's Fall/Winter 2017 Men's pre-collection. While the main collection focused on the convergence of hip-hop in New York during the ‘80s and the style of its most celebrated artists (Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat in particular), the capsule built of the music theme, with Jones and Fujiwara creating a fictional rock band appropriately named “Louis V and the Fragments.” Given the collection’s theme and Fujiwara’s role in proliferating hip-hop throughout Tokyo decades prior, the project—like all of Fujiwara’s work—made perfect sense. Following the release, Jones explained what makes Fujiwara consistently relevant: “The fact that he crosses fashion, music and culture—and continues to be interested in the new as well as the timeless—allows him to remain as important as he is.”
Fujiwara’s enthusiasm for product ultimately derives from his direct relationship to the culture that inspires it. Armed with a first-hand account of then burgeoning punk and hip-hop scenes, Fujiwara helped shape the notion of modern streetwear as we know it. Fujiwara’s taste level cannot be replicated because while others reference sub-cultures or specific eras, he lived them. In our current era, where information is easily accessible online and actual experience is in short supply, his expertise has only become more valuable. Fujiwara’s formula is equal parts rebellion and innovation. He finds what makes a product or experience so appealing, and bolsters those aspects, while adding an element of surprise. It’s this balance between refinement and experimentation that makes Fujiwara such a gifted creative force. Despite all his accolades and accomplishments to date, he continues to operate at a fierce pace that shows few signs of slowing. He very much is the “Godfather of Streetwear,” and it seems unlikely he will pass the torch anytime soon.
