Class of Kuro Kage
Or something like that…
Lesson 1
Pronounced ‘Ku·ro Ka·ge’. This is me on my journey of creating a streetwear clothing label - one of my dream goals from my uni days that I’ve put on the back-burner (on “Some-day Island” for any Brian Tracy readers) that I will be reviving, exploring and putting into motion :)
My two biggest inspirations from my uni days that sparked my love of illustrative character design were Tokidoki and Jeremyville. Being a big fan of k-pop back then also exposed me to lots of street trends and styles.
In recent years, I’ve drawn more inspiration from Japanese culture (one of my favourites), Kenzo, tattoo art culture, hip hop dance culture, Billionaire Boys Club, Supreme and more simplistic/minimal brands such as Amiparis and CDG Play have a sense of sophistication.
Recently I had an interesting brainstorming session and discussion with a creative friend who was actually previously my Art Director and mentor; best person I’ve ever met! We both like to play make-pretend of putting our creative juices into imaginative contexts and while I was talking to him about manifesting my clothing label idea, he also showed me conceptual clothing brands and mockups he had AI generate for him through Midjourney prompts. I was absolutely mind blown; they were crazy good! Not just the designs but the ideas and concepts behind even his brand names. He finished up by saying “we are crazy” (+ creative people in general) and we always have the urge to simply create, always generating ideas, even if it’s just to mind dump or through conceptual mockups that we keep in our personal archives which never gets released to the public - we simply find joy and purpose in the process of creating. I also told him if he doesn’t release his amazing ideas, I will steal them. Haha joking of course! My way of encouraging him to put his designs out there. He was also the one who came up with that name Kuro which means black in Japanese so I must give him credit for inspiring me.
Other initial names I had during brainstorming:
kuro collection, kuro class, class of ka·ge (kage = shadow in Japanese)
More to come, including the concept behind Class of Kuro Kage, in lesson 2!