NIGO loves Verdy so much that they're opening a concept store together. OTSUMO PLAZA brings together the HUMAN MADE and Wasted Youth founders for a proper brick and mortar retail moment, offering fans the first-ever dedicated Verdy shopping experience.
Named for OTSUMO, Human Made's parent company — which recently added KAWS and W. David Marx to its board — OTSUMO PLAZA is located inside an unassuming façade within Tokyo's pricey Aoyama neighborhood.
It's spacious inside, though, and promises to offer exclusive merch, HUMAN MADE collaborations, and all sorts of other treats for Verdy's ardent following. OTSUMO PLAZA has a similar feel to PARK-ING GINZA and THE CONBINI, two intentionally short-lived experiential stores operated by NIGO's mentor, fragment design founder Hiroshi Fujiwara.
Unlike those streetwear experiments, though, OTSUMO PLAZA will represent a long-term bet on Verdy's success when it opens on November 4.
For the past five-ish years, graphic designer Verdy has evolved from a Japanese fashion insider to a streetwear celebrity of sorts, thanks to an intentional boost in visibility from Fujiwara and NIGO. Verdy has since evolved into a collaborative powerhouse, his Wasted Youth and Girls Don't Cry imprints partnering with companies as diverse as Budweiser, glasses label JINS, Nike, and UNIQLO.
Most recently, Verdy took a high-profile appointment as BLACKPINK's artistic director.
OTSUMO PLAZA is an extension of OTSUMO CENTRE, also known as OTSUMOSO, founded in 2022. This was a collective of high-profile Japanese designers who came together behind the scenes to, as the kids say, link and build.
“Just like the Tokiwa-sō, the apartment where Showa manga artists gathered, I want to make OTSUMO CENTRE a place that embodies the activities of the creators, who will lead the next generation of Japan,” NIGO said in a press release.
OTSUMO PLAZA is an evolution of that shared design ethos, offering NIGO's cache of sought-after creators a physical store to sell their covetable product. The emphasis will remain on Verdy, though plenty of other creatives will pop up in due time.
Collaboration is the name of NIGO's game, who's steered his own HUMAN MADE brand towards big-time team-ups with Cactus Plant Flea Market, Lil Uzi Vert, and Levi's, to name but a few
