Brent Faiyaz mostly keeps to himself so it's fitting that his clothing brand, NUWO, has basically done the same thus far. Ideated by Faiyaz and his creative director, Mark Peaced, NUWO was first ideated back in 2020 and, three years later, was finally deemed ready to emerge.
NUWO ("Not Unless We Own") was suddenly released to the public on the hottest day ever recorded thus far, July 4, 2023.
The one-day NUWO pop-up in Los Angeles offered Faiyaz' fans a first look at his burgeoning brand before a selection of stuff hit Basic.Space's website on July 5, two days before the launch of NUWO's own website.
So, what exactly is NUWO?
That's still not entirely clear even from the brand's press release, which offers vague themes of "self-empowerment" as NUWO's raison d'être.
NUWO is also supposedly as representative of independence as Brent Faiyaz himself, who recently turned down a multimillion-dollar record deal to stay free of major labels
"We founded this brand to inspire others," Faiyaz said in a statement. "Through our designs and messages, we hope to encourage a sense of ownership and self-belief."
Vague enough? Well, let's focus on the tangible.
NUWO acknowledges core influences from "the late '90s and early aughts," which it describes as influencing its own "unique and expressive fashion choices."
In layman's terms, you can tell that NUWO possesses a design language equally steeped in early streetwear brands (Supreme, Project Dragon, Subware) and retro Nickelodeon ads.
Thus, NUWO's output includes staple fare (high-vis graphic T-shirts and debossed flat-brim caps) alongside more labor-intensive clothing, like bespoke denim jeans and sunglasses.
There's even an in-house sneaker, which looks like a hybrid of Travis Scott's Nike Dunks and the Northwave Espresso.
Also intriguing: some of NUWO's limited campaign imagery reveals a black and white North Face Nuptse puffer with its chest logo partially obscured by a NUWO patch.
Brent Faiyaz is hardly the first (or most recent) musician to launch his own clothing line but at least NUWO seems poised to make his vision relatively approachable, rather than indulgently expensive.
In that vein, NUWO feels of a kind with Drew House, the clothing line co-founded by Justin Bieber: both brands channel '90s nostalgia into graphic flair as their famous co-founder powers their bottom line.
But NUWO is still mostly a mystery, for now. It'll take more than a one-off pop-up to translate buzz into long-term success.
