Human Made

Human Made was founded in 2010 by NIGO in Tokyo as the next chapter after he stepped back from A Bathing Ape (founded 1993, sold 2011 to I.T Group). Where Bape had been provocative, hype-driven, and tightly bound to early-2000s Harajuku, Human Made is a different practice — patient, archive-rich, rooted in NIGO's deep love of American vintage workwear, military surplus, and graphic Americana from the 1940s–60s. The brand's signature duck-with-heart logo, the cult Hello Kitty collaboration, the limited-edition vinyl record releases on the Human Made Records label, and a long-running collaboration with KAWS, Pharrell Williams' Billionaire Boys Club, Adidas, and Verdy's Wasted Youth all sit inside a coherent vocabulary that NIGO calls 'vintage future' — products that look like they were made fifty years ago but are constructed at a higher fidelity than anything from that era. In 2021 NIGO was named creative director of Kenzo, the first Japanese designer to lead a French luxury house. He continues to run Human Made in parallel and has expanded the brand into Bath & Beauty, café (Blue Bottle Studio with the third-wave coffee brand), bicycle, and music. The single most consistent thread across his thirty-five-year career is an obsessive interest in objects designed before he was born — and an absolute confidence that he can re-make them better.