Nigo, born Tomoaki Nagao, is a Japanese fashion designer and entrepreneur known for creating the clothing brands Bape, Billionaire Boys Club, and Human Made  He first started out in 2002, selling a few Bape shirts and all over print hoodies with the now iconic camo print. He was cosigned by artists like Kanye West, Pharrell and Kid Cudi, which cemented Bape as the defining brand of Hip Hop for that era  He then went on to parter with logo designer Sk8thing and Pharrell to create Billionaire Boys club in 2005. Around that time he also released his own sneaker, the ‘Bapestas,’ which became on of the most iconic, sought after collectible sneakers.  Nigo’s success partially came from his mindset on exclusivity. He only ever supplied about 10% of what consumers demanded. This lack of saturating the market, paired with new designs every release, led to a culture of collectors still seeking out pieces from decades ago. Nigo was a collector himself, working on collaborations with artists like KAWS, takashi murakami, and ben baller, making one offs that make his current studio look like a museum.  In 2014 he founded a new brand, Human Made, based in Japan. This brand ended up more exclusive than his past ventures, using higher quality fabrics sourced from Japan, and even less releases. This new brand involved even more niche products, such as human made mallards, human made cargo crates, and military backpacks among other specific designs.  Nigo remains one of the most influential designers in modern hip hop and fashion. No matter what his future ventures entail, he’ll always bring an intense attention to detail and the idea prioritizing product over profit, which leads to the best quality result.