For many, the name NIGO doesn’t necessarily mean much. His influence, on the other hand, is everywhere.
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Born Tomoaki Nagao, this 55-year-old Japanese designer, DJ, producer and entrepreneur is best known for founding the streetwear giant A Bathing Ape (BAPE), for his long years of collaboration with Pharrell Williams and Virgil Abloh, and as current artistic director of Kenzo.
Long before fashion became passionate about cross-collaborations, limited-edition drops and artistic directors navigating between music, design and luxury, NIGO was already at the helm.
The Design Museum in London is today devoting its first major retrospective to him. NIGO: From Japan with Love brings together more than 700 objects spanning his entire career, from clothing and collectibles to furniture, musical memorabilia and pieces from his personal archives.
The exhibition traces his journey, from a teenager obsessed with American culture and vinyl records to one of the most influential cultural figures of the last thirty years.
Euronews Culture sat down with the exhibition’s curator, Esme Hawes, to discuss NIGO’s legacy, the challenge of translating his immense creative universe into a museum, and why his personal collection could be the key to understanding everything he did.
Euronews Culture: What was the initial inspiration for putting together this exhibition, and why did the moment seem right to you?
Esme Hawes : NIGO is a well-known name in Asia, but in Europe and the West, it is much less identified – while its brands are immediately recognizable. People have not necessarily made the link between these brands and the person who is behind them.
We were therefore very keen to explore the role of an artistic director at the museum, which is ultimately what NIGO is best known for. He is not a fashion designer in the classic sense of the term, he is more of a creative director and a brand builder. For a design museum, this is particularly interesting, because it is a very contemporary approach to what a designer is today. We’re less interested in people who excel at drawing silhouettes than in those who can bring collaborators together and build universes from there – and that’s something NIGO does remarkably well.
We also wanted to highlight the fact that NIGO is a huge collector, and has always been – I think since childhood. He keeps almost everything he collects and uses it as a real toolbox, from which he draws to fuel his projects, even today, at over 50 years old.
To what extent did NIGO participate in the exhibition?
NIGO has been extremely involved from the start, which is great for us. It’s a real honor, because NIGO is an exceptional collaborator – we see it with all the brands and projects he’s taken part in. It’s very rare that he works alone: he integrates a multitude of creatives and designers into his process.
He played a key role in the selection of the pieces presented. The majority comes from his own collection – around 90%. I myself went to Tokyo to meet him, discuss with him his collection, what matters to him, his favorite pieces – all this to construct the narrative of the exhibition. He was also very present in the design of the exhibition itself, working with our scenographers, both architects and graphic designers.
Did anything surprise you about NIGO when you met him?
He is an incredibly humble man for someone who has had such a rich career and who has worked with the greatest. This humility surprised me, but I find it a very pleasant way to work.
What’s great about NIGO is that he always has a very strong desire to learn – and I think that’s why he’s been so successful. Keeping this posture of an eternal student, telling yourself that there is still a lot to learn to progress, it’s a really interesting approach.
The exhibition is divided into four sections. Can you present them to us?
Yes, there are four sections, in a generally chronological journey. We start with the reconstruction of NIGO’s teenage bedroom. He’s kept everything since he was about six years old, which is pretty incredible.
From there, we enter the part dedicated to NIGO as a collector, because, as I said, his collection is at the heart of his practice. When we look at what he collects and know his career well, we can establish striking parallels between the objects he accumulates, what he look and what he ends up designing.
We worked with USM, a modular furniture company – NIGO uses their furniture to display his collection in his studio in Tokyo – so we almost recreated the way he stores his collection, using USM furniture.
The third section is really about the “NIGO effect” – a nod to what is called the “Kate Middleton effect”. When Kate Middleton wears a dress, it’s out of stock everywhere. The idea is that when a personality is associated with a brand, their name and aura make them popular and desirable. NIGO is therefore not only a valuable collaborator for his own brands, he is now sought after by just about everyone – Uniqlo, Adidas, Nike – all these big brands who want to collaborate with him.
The last section looks at what excites him today. NIGO is constantly looking for new ways to learn and expand his knowledge, and he has now entered a phase where he becomes fascinated with traditional Japanese culture and practices. He is currently training to become a master of tea ceremonies and also makes very beautiful ceramic pots which he uses during these ceremonies.
What were NIGO’s first sources of inspiration?
From the age of about six, he was completely fascinated by Americana – anything from the United States. He collected American magazines, Disney toys like Donald Duck, that sort of thing. It echoed what was happening in Japan at the time he was growing up, with an influx of American influences since the war, a few decades earlier. Americana therefore represents a major part of his collection.
Fashion also interests him a lot through Japanese subcultures. He grew up on the outskirts of Tokyo, in Miyabashi, but he often went into town to shop for second-hand clothes and records, go skateboarding and just hang out with his friends. He therefore collected at a very young age, and was immersed very early in pop culture and countercultures.
Are there any key pieces that visitors should spot?
In one of the first sections there is a Levi’s jacket which is one of the very first pieces of vintage clothing NIGO bought – he was a teenager, I think. It is completely worn out, but obviously very worn and very loved. For him it was a extremely exciting piece, because it was his first step into the world of vintage clothing.
There’s a very touching little anecdote: he lied to his mother about the price he had paid, because he knew that she would be absolutely shocked if she found out how much he had spent on this torn denim jacket.
Another piece that I really like comes from his Bape debut. It’s an order form from when he had just launched Bape and was ordering lightweight jackets and t-shirts – the very first items sold by A Bathing Ape. On this order, we see that he is only ordering five of each product, which is really a tiny quantity.
He explained that it was then a financial necessity, but that it also made it possible to very strongly limit the quantities and to create rarity and buzz.
What place does music occupy in the exhibition?
Hugely. As you probably know, NIGO is a DJ, drummer, producer – he has done almost everything in music, he has released his own albums and set up his own labels.
We really wanted it to be a central element of the exhibition, and NIGO also wanted music to be a major part.
So we set up a listening station with playlists selected by NIGO himself – tracks from artists he’s produced, or bands he’s played in, like Teriyaki Boys, as well as his collaborators.
What do you think is NIGO’s biggest influence on fashion?
Collaboration is a key point – and that way of thinking about design and creativity as a broad spectrum rather than putting people into boxes, whether it’s fashion or music.
NIGO excels in the art of bringing together creatives from different disciplines and carrying out projects that cross fashion, art, music, design – whatever the field. This is something very rare and very particular to his approach.
In NIGO’s Kenzo shows, for example, he composes the music himself or calls on a collaborator or friend. The whole space is designed by someone he works with – an architect or designer. He himself obviously takes care of the clothes, but it’s a total production, where every detail is thought of.
This global and holistic vision of creation and design.
NIGO: From Japan with Love is on view until October 4, 2026 at the Design Museum in London.
