LUMINARY

As the founder of A Bathing Ape and a producer for artists like Pusha T and Kid Cudi, Nigo has been setting trends and shaping culture for decades. But with his new role as artistic director of Kenzo Walli the streetwear superstar has an opportunity to put his indelible mark on fashion like never before. 

- Joshua Hunt

IN early December of last year, about 10 weeks after taking over as artistic director at the French luxury brand Kenzo, the Japanese fashion designer Nigo flew by private jet from Paris to New York, where he headed straight for the Midtown Manhattan town house of upscale jeweller Jacob & Co. It was a familiar pilgrimage for the streetwear icon, whose appetite for custom chains with diamond-encrusted pendants has made Jacob "The Jeweler" Arabo his informal biographer. This chronicle of Nigo's career began with necklaces with fist-size ape heads inspired by A Bathing Ape, the culture-shifting streetwear brand Nigo founded in Tokyo's Harajuku neighbourhood in 1993.

Then came the bejewelled dollar signs commemorating the Billionaire Boys Club brand he co-founded with superstar producer Pharrell Williams a decade later. In celebration of Human Made, the subdued, hypebeast-casual clothing line he launched in 2010, Jacob crafted an assortment of polar bears, ducks, and other cartoonish characters cast in diamonds and white gold.