The fourth day of Tokyo Fashion Week was all about A Bathing Ape (BAPE). Legendary Japanese streetwear brand BAPE - most famous for inventing the current "drop" culture we all live in - is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Fashion Week head sponsor Rakuten pulled out all the stops to get the brand to do a runway show (billed as the first ever BAPE runway show in Tokyo).
While BAPE is one of the most famous Japanese fashion brands in the world, founder NIGO (now the head designer of another legendary Japanese brand, KENZO) sold the brand several years ago, and it's currently run by a Hong Kong company. The fact that NIGO isn't the designer anymore means that we didn't see some of the super a-list 1990s Harajuku/Urahara luminaries, but the show was still packed with Japanese celebs, rappers, influencers, top industry executives, and swarms of BAPE fans.
The BAPE 30th anniversary fashion show was held at the 1964 Japanese Olympic Stadium (Yoyogi National 2nd Gymnasium) designed by Kenzo Tange, one of the most beautiful modern buildings in all of Japan. As it was the last runway show of the night, it was held after dark with the entire front of the Olympic Stadium illuminated in A Bathing Ape's iconic color camouflage pattern, creating a party-like atmosphere for the guests entering the show. There were also special unannounced performances by K-Pop stars and others during the runway show, which was a rare non-live-streamed TFW event. Most Tokyo Fashion Week shows are available to watch live on Instagram, but for BAPE you had to be there or miss out on the fun.
The lighting at the Yoyogi National 2nd Gymnasium isn't the best for photography, and the party-like atmosphere and large crowd added to the challenge - but we were able to get quite a few BAPE street snaps in front of the illuminated stadium. A super moon also lit up the skies of Tokyo after the sun went down (helping to illuminate our street snaps).
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