Toby Feltwell on BAPE’s Takeover and Why Streetwear Wasn’t Meant to Last
As part of Highsnobiety’s “Everything Is Streetwear” story and video series, we’re sharing a select number of our conversations with style insiders in full.
A British skateboarder turned A&R for the cult label Mo’ Wax, Toby Feltwell began working with Nigo in the early 2000s, advising on BAPE and Billionaire Boys Club. As they prepared to open the first BAPE store in America, the pair shuttled between Tokyo and New York, moving in some of the most exciting cultural circles at that time. They flew on private jets with Pharrell, popped champagne in Manhattan night clubs, and generally speaking lived at the center of the zeitgeist. Later, in 2011, Feltwell founded the label Cav Empt with Hishiyama Yutaka and SK8THING.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
There are so many definitions of “streetwear.” Some people think of the term contentiously. How do you define it?
I know what you mean when you say contentiously. This often happens, where the people who start something that becomes a recognizable movement aren’t responsible for naming it. And they often feel peeved about the final selection. But I guess there is power in naming something. We didn’t come up with a better name for it so I guess we just have to accept it.
When BAPE first started to get a bit of international recognition, the guys who considered themselves to be the originators of whatever it was we were doing, like Erik Brunetti and Rick Klotz, got all upset that Japanese people were doing streetwear. We were part of a second wave that they felt resentful of. They were like, “Who the fuck are these kids? They don’t know what they’re doing.” I think they were baffled as to why anybody would think that the Japanese stuff was cooler than their stuff because they were the original dudes and blah, blah, blah, blah.
Streetwear defines itself in a negative way, as in, “it’s not that.” You can’t just do anything; it has to follow certain rules, and defining the rules is part of the game. The contribution BAPE made to that space was in broadening the toolbox of things that were acceptable. You go from just varsity jackets and T-shirts, sweatshirts and hoodies, and maybe a pair of jeans and some combat pants to adding more and more things that can fit into something that feels like it’s still real.
In 2025, people have this very respectful view of fashion in general. But in the early ’90s we all thought it was incredibly embarrassing, especially men’s fashion. If you think about Paris men’s fashion from the mid-’90s, there was really nothing that anybody respected, with notable exceptions: Comme des Garçons, Yohji, Helmut Lang, Margiela. But all of the sort of classic French fashion houses were just changing the shape of a suit lapel and different colored shirts. We considered that stuff to be a joke. The idea of wanting to get recognition from that world seemed completely alien. But things have obviously changed dramatically. I think that’s what made it streetwear: you weren’t looking to belong to a tradition or get recognized by any kind of gatekeepers in particular. It was just…stuff to be seen on the street.
When you think back on 2005, what’s the first image or place that comes to mind?
It would definitely be New York. In 2003, I lived in Japan for six months. I started working with Nigo on opening the BAPE store in New York and setting up the business there, and then also meeting Pharrell and starting Billionaire Boys Club. The energy, or the identity for BAPE was all coming from New York at the time. We were going there very frequently. Hip-hop culture, for want of a better word, became the global, dominating pop culture for the first time. We were witnessing it all from next door. I think that we all knew exactly what to do. Everything seemed very natural, and the next step was immediately obvious. I mean, very fun times. A lot of stupid stuff happened, but it was also super fun.
Were you traveling with Nigo when you visited New York? What would you do there?
I would always be traveling with Nigo internationally. We would be in New York once a month. We’d see Pharrell in New York a lot, but maybe we’d go to Miami with him or whatever. Everybody around us was hitting their stride at the same time. But it was scenes of real stereotypical excess: lots of silly parties and jewelry and champagne and private jets and et cetera, et cetera, which was hysterically funny. I’ve forgotten quite a lot of it. But it just seemed quite normal for a while. Clearly not normal. It did genuinely feel like we were in the middle of the zeitgeist. We weren’t really paying that much attention to what was going on in Japan at the time to be honest.
By that stage, BAPE in Japan was already very established and nothing particularly new to the domestic audience, and it took a while for them to understand that this was happening on the other side of the world. The image of the brand now is pretty much what was formed 20 years ago.
When you say hysterically funny, what do you mean? Because it was surreal?
Oh yeah, totally. I don’t know about Nigo — you’d have to ask him; he definitely got more of the star genes. Being somebody who was a skateboarder who was into music and clothes, I didn’t expect to be hanging out with these people. It was a little unusual, let’s say.
What was Nigo like as a collaborator, especially back then?
If he was interested in something, he would be extremely open to and accepting of what anybody else wanted to bring to it. The aim was never to agonize over stuff. If it worked smoothly and easily, then it would happen. It was never overly conceptual or complicated.
Do you ever see him get angry or impatient, or does he not have that kind of personality?
In general, no. We were 20 years younger, so people tend to get used to having things their own way over time and get a bit more curmudgeonly as they get older. But when you’re doing something for the first time, it’s all new. Obviously we are traveling in a foreign environment a bit out of our comfort zone. There were stressful moments, I’m sure. I always tried to stay out of the photos, but I guess people started to identify Nigo. It’s like, "Who’s this Japanese guy?" I think he started to feel the spotlight on him a little bit, and he’s not exactly comfortable with that kind of stuff.
We had a conversation with Marc Jacobs… it might have been as early as 2004 about a BAPE capsule for Louis Vuitton. Nigo had always really cared about Vuitton and wanted to do it. It didn’t come out because Yves Carcelle, who was the CEO at the time, was just not feeling it. I think Marc got quite frustrated because he felt it was exactly the time to do it. But what Supreme did with Kim is extremely similar to what it would’ve been. When did that come out? Was it 2018?
When you go from a self-made bunch of friends to having something officially sanctioned by the luxury world, that’s the end of it.
I was going to say 2017.
Maybe Carcelle was right, and the time for that was much later than we all anticipated. You could think of that as being the end of the path for the version of streetwear we were involved with. Because if that’s now Vuitton, what does it mean anymore? The blurring of those boundaries was an end point. It was an aspiration for Nigo because he was a Vuitton fanatic. I think his appreciation of that stuff fed into BAPE.
When you go from a self-made bunch of friends doing what they think is cool with no real external support to having something officially sanctioned by the most dusty, venerable part of the luxury world, it’s drawing a curtain over something. That’s the end of it.
The work you did at BBC and BAPE, is there something in particular that you’re most proud of?
I don’t know, really. Just the idea that it became real. At first it was BAPE being mentioned in lyrics and seeing the clothes in videos for people you’ve got absolutely no contact with. For us to see these things appearing in the cultural output of the area that we were already interested in, that was the achievement. On a certain level it’s all sort of silly because it’s just consumer products, but there’s a profound conversation where you are in agreement with somebody on the other side of the world.
With BBC it was obviously a bit gamed because we were straight in there with the Illuminati, you know what I mean? But with BAPE, I really encouraged Nigo to do the American stuff. I was really confident for some reason that this was gonna translate. So for that to turn out to be true was very satisfying.
Pharrell’s journey to LVMH — did it surprise you? Did he always have that ambition?
I don’t think he always had that ambition. It doesn’t surprise me that that’s something LVMH would do. I thought it was quite interesting when he was appointed and there was quite a lot of hate about it: “He’s not even a fashion designer.” “He didn’t go to design school.” I mean, what do you guys think LV is? You’re talking about something that’s right in the middle of celebrity culture, aspiration, mainstream identification.
But I always thought a brand like Louis Vuitton, which hasn’t been a fashion brand for all that long in the grand scheme of things, I thought them hiring some super respected, proper clothes maker was way more bullshit than hiring somebody like Pharrell to be a kind of spokesmodel and leader — the embodiment of a kind of modern luxury, travel-oriented lifestyle. I mean, he’s actually living the fantasy. So on that level, I think it makes perfect sense. I don’t know if I should say this even, but I wonder if it’s actually a high-profile enough thing for Pharrell to be doing. He’s got to be in Paris all the time — it takes up a lot of his attention. Being the head of LV men’s is massive for any clothing designer. But this is Pharrell! It’s taking him out of the spotlight to some degree. But his excitement is the idea of being able to make something that he thinks of. Which is obviously something that he’s completely proficient in doing in music by himself. But in clothes, he requires infrastructure. He’s got that at Vuitton and so I think that would be very satisfying to him.
I think there’s a crisis for all of these brands. The idea of something being luxurious and exclusive is that it’s only for a certain elevated class of people, and people want to believe they’re in that elevated class because it’s a sign of having made it. But if you then make the products for everyone, where’s the aspiration? They’ve really oversold themselves to some degree. But I think that’s a very difficult thing to do in modern business. These are all public companies. For them to be like, we’re actually going to limit ourselves — we only want to sell to the right people. That’s very difficult to have as a mission statement. What do they stand for now? It’s quite difficult to say.
Their board probably doesn’t want to hear that they want to limit who the customer is.
No. Permanent and continual growth, which is clearly impossible. I think they’ve very much diluted what they stand for. With Virgil’s appointment particularly, that was like, “This is inclusive. We want everybody to feel involved.” But the real nature of those brands is that they’re extremely snobby and they basically look at you like, “You think you deserve this?” The ideal customers for those brands are people who are prepared to fight through that and say, “Damn right.” To be too welcoming removes all of the value. I think that’s the nature of Paris fashion: “Who the fuck are you?” People are still spending lots of money on all of this stuff, but I think they’re definitely going to have to rethink the way that they go about things in future. Not my problem, thankfully.
Is there a way in which that attitude has a sort of mirror image in streetwear?
Oh, for sure.
“What makes you think you can hang with us?”
Yeah, absolutely. One hundred percent. Wearing stuff that the majority of people would just think, “What the fuck is that?” But the in-group understands it. We had our own definitions of what was cool and what wasn’t cool that other people wouldn’t understand. I think that does still exist for young people. But you get a lot of young, DIY brands out there and the aspirations are clear: obvious “Wanna make it” success. I’m always trying to tell people, that’s only interesting to you, bro. The customers, what do they get from that? Are you going to buy them a car when you’ve made it? But I don’t know. I’m not trying to be a grumpy old geezer.
I think you’re clear-eyed about the pitfalls but have a desire for the new, which I think is inherently optimistic.
Yeah, totally. Yeah, let’s go with that [laughs]. Living in the city, it’s only interesting because of constant change. That’s why we live here. You have to enjoy that, or it’s time to retire to an unchanging landscape.
Where are we in 2025? How would you describe this moment?
Everything is simultaneously available, and it’s quite chaotic. One of the obstacles in doing what we do is 17- to 23-year-olds just don’t remember a period in time when they weren’t heavily marketed to on a 24/7 basis. Our instincts about the way we make stuff are all very dependent on having to make a real effort to look. It wasn’t fed to you at all. If anything, you had to find paths to other people who were interested in the same stuff and share information. But the way mobile internet is dominated by advertising, it wants people to be very dependent and to feel like there’s nothing else for them to look for. You already know everything because you’ve got it right here.
Maybe it’s no different than the sort of mainstream culture that we were confronted with on TV, and the people who are interested manage to find a way around it. But it does seem to be more exclusionary now of anything other than what people who are prepared to pay advertising money want you to see. The way all these forces are working together, the way marketing works on people’s phones, it really wants to push you into the consumer role. It is not just we’re showing you stuff you might like; it’s like you’ve got no choice. And it seems like people are more willing to accept the role of consumer. It’s a different paradigm. And from my perspective, that’s sort of a shame. But as long as people are still making their own stuff…that’s the objective.
At the moment, we’re at an incredibly unhealthy state in the aspirational fashion business as a whole. As in, the guys who were killing it for the past few years, LVMH, Kering, etc. are suddenly suffering because I think people have just realized they don’t want this shit anymore. There is a general reaction against it, a kind of refusal. Like: No, don’t need it. But the answer can’t just be, “Buy vintage,” you know what I mean? That doesn’t lead to a creative way out of the current situation.
Why is fashion and music and so on important to young people? It’s because they don’t really have access to anything else where they can make some kind of impact on their environment — something that communicates something about them to the rest of the world. And the easiest ways to do that are with clothes, music, dance. I think it’s important for those things to continue to exist. What mainly interests me in life is seeing all of the new stuff and hearing all of the new stuff. I want to support that as much as possible.
