Japanese streetwear veteran Nigo is really, really busy these days. Now he is teaming up with Family Mart as the convenient store’s creative director

The plate of Tomoaki Nagao—you’d know him as Nigo—must be really full. He just announced on Instagram that he has joined the kombini Family Mart as their creative director. Is that a part-time gig since there is no announcement at Kenzo that he is stepping down? This is surprising news, coming hot on the heels of his collaboration with Pharrell Williams for a jointly-designed autumn/winter 2025 LV Men collection. Mr Nagao is of course, the founder of A Bathing Ape (in 2013, he officially stepped away from any involvement with the brand after selling a majority stake to Hong Kong’s I.T Group in 2011). He is currently behind Human Made, the brand that he created in 2010 as streetwear for adults, if you will. And, in the mean time, he has the collaborations with Mr Williams: the juvenile-sounding Billionaire Boys’ Club and Ice Cream, both conceived in 2003.

It is not clear why Mr Nagao covets the Family Mart job (earlier, the convenient store collaborated with Facetasm’s Hiroshi Ochiai. There was even a fashion show in 2023 for the collection). He has had a taste of designing for the masses when he took on the role of creative director for Uniqlo’s UT (T-shirt) line in 2013, the same year he divorced himself from A Bathing Ape. It is not clear when he left Uniqlo, but in 2021, he accepted the appointment at Kenzo. He started promisingly for the LVMH-owned brand, even presenting what we thought was his best collection—the autumn/winter 2024 season. But then there was no follow-up to that one-time high. Increasingly, Kenzo reminds us of Espirit with the now-in-trouble Benetton thrown in for good measure. With Family Mart presently in the picture, how will he push Kenzo forward? Or, can Tomoaki Nagao really be the Karl Lagerfeld of streetwear?

Photo: nigo/Instagram