Here's some of my favorite clothes & fashion tips from the internet (& my homies)! 😎🦖👕🕺
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Yoooo! Whaddup dude ! 😁👋
Hope you been doing well! So! I wanted to try something new in the Kaiju Club, because I don't think I've ever brought up Style or Fashion to you before! 🤔😅
Even if fashion isn't your thing, I talk about some sick Car stuff, some rad Youtube Channels, and some nice retro game (in particular Sonic Adventure) inspired art! So I think you'll find something rad in this no matter what! 🤩
I got quite the stories in this episode of the Kaiju Club, and this is going to be a LONG email, so I bolded everything interesting like I usually do if you just wanna skim this! But, totally I think there's lots of little gems in here, so if you like to read, this will be a blast haha! 😎
Without further ado, let's jump into it! 🎉
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How I Started Getting Into Fashion Creators 👀
I think I've always had a decent sense of style! Which, I think comes from me Skateboarding a ton growing up, since Skateboarding has always been a head of the curve fashion wise! But also, I've been on the internet since I was like 6 years old, so I've also watched "online fashion" grow and evolve over time lowkey! 🤔😁
That being said though, I also didn't grow up with much money, so it was always: "What's the coolest clothes to me, in the most budget friendly form factor" LMAO! And to this day, I still struggle to spend more than like $60 on Skate Shoes, and like more than $50 for a shirt. Some habits die hard I guess! 😅
But! What really got me into style and fashion though, was when my buddy Karim suggested I watch the Youtube Channel Frugal Aesthetics in like 2021 (My Favorite Video is their one on "THE MOST ICONIC FIT PICS OF ALL TIME"). As much as it's meant to just be funny, and poke fun at fashion culture, it also has some gems in there from time to time! 🤩
After my homie Karim started putting me on, I have another homie named Newport. I've mentioned them before from my adventures doing Groovy Kaiju shows in the Phoenix, AZ area! Anyways, Newport is ALWAYS dripped out, like it's WILD how stylish this MFer is haha! Everytime they visit me, we at least spend a day for them to go clothes shopping at like boutique and high end thrift stores around L.A. 😂
Anyways! Newport once had me and my girlfriend wake up at 8am, to go to a fashion pop up thing, because one of their favorite brands was doing a limited time shirt drop. And it's at this this pop up that style really started clicking for me when I went to that about a year ago! 🤯
Newport had me to to Terminal, which essentially was like a hyped up fashion flea market with various Instagram famous clothing brands. For example, it's there that I learned about Ethereal, which specializes in Dark, Retro Anime horror anime clothes, and the line was literally HOURS long to buy a shirt. Thankfully Newport wanted me to get them a tie dye Hentai inspired Car Wash Shirt from GetLostPerv, and I ended up buying myself a shirt from another vendor: RareCandy, which also does anime inspired clothes. 🤩😎💃🎉
After the pop up, my girlfriend, who actually took a bunch of fashion classes and did a fashion show back in Arizona, put me onto iconic Fashion designers that people who are into Fashion know about. And I found another Youtube channel called Threaducation, that highlights the history and come up of various fashion designers. And it was from Threaducation, that I found out I have a taste for Rick Owen's work, after watching the Threaducation History of Rick Owens video! 👟🥾😁
And funnily enough, this all kind of happened at a perfect time! As you know I've dabbled in Fashion before, by throwing up some Groovy Kaiju designs on Threadless, and eventually via Printful on my Oceanfront Online Shopify Store. But one thing I've struggled with, and honestly in my experience most clothes you buy online, is it's really hard to take care of these shirts and find a good fit. So as I learned more about fashion, how quality clothes are made, how the fit of the clothes is sometimes even more important than the design, and the different blanks and printing methods for shirts, it really prepared me for working with All Hell Breaks Loops on the first round of Crystal Nostalgia shirts. 👀
Crystal Nostalgia is my monthly Future Funk show I run in Downtown L.A, and when we wanted to make shirts for the community, we found some high quality blanks, and make designs that were limited for the price we wanted, and were able to screen print for the quality we wanted. And to this day, they are probably my favorite shirts in terms of quality and comfortability! 😩🙏
But! I can dive into that in the next email, I'm already rambling enough haha! Really, I wanted to highlight some of my favorite clothes that I've bought, in case you've been on your own fashion journey lately like I have! So, let me get into that haha! 😅😎
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My Favorite Fashion Creator: Donut Media 🏎️
Donut Media is a Youtube Channel making rad videos about car culture, here's a link to my favorite video! It goes over the process of importing a car overseas, and the one they pick is a SUPER quirky Kei-style Chinese Truck from Alibaba LMAO
https://youtu.be/yRG0Wai4sR0?si=Q36ffGJ0yBRHIM4K
As you can see in my fit pic above, I'm rockin' some red skate pants, with the Donut Media "Cars are Pain" washed black shirt. I took this picture right after I got my 2009 Scion tC. 😎🔑
Honestly, I absolutely LOVE the donut T-Shirts, mostly because in a weird way, I feel like they really nailed the like: "I'm working on my car today" fit. The shirts feel a little beat up, but like, in a respected way if that makes sense. And usually the designs are super well thought out! They're either inside jokes from the Youtube channel series, or, like mine is, is really just highlighting car culture. 😂🏎️🎉
For example, I used to have an absolute dogshit 1996 Honda Accord. And dude, the starter would CONSTANTLY go out, it was like the ending was eating them for breakfast. So, I eventually realized I could just put an actual switch underneath the hood, and if I turn the car into accessory mode, I could get out of the car, flip the switch, and start the started directly from the positive terminal on the battery. So, when they put up a shirt that said "Cars are pain", I had to instantly buy it LMAO! 😂😂😂
Anyways, I like their shirts enough that I bought the same shirt like 3 times during their Black Friday sale. And yes, if you're wondering, my closet is pretty much the same clothes again over and over like a cartoon character LMAO! 😂😂😂
And it's nice to see Donut go from just having an online Merch Store for Youtubers, all the way to selling their clothes in Zumiez (which is a skate shop, and kinda goes back to skating being on the forefront of fashion like I was saying!) 👀😎
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Another Favorite Fashion Creator: Mamono World
You can find Mamono World on Instagram, with TONS of mostly Sonic Adventure inspired pieces:
https://www.instagram.com/mamonoworld/
So, I know a lot of folks in the Kaiju Club found my music via and Instagram Ad (like you maybe haha!), and hey, I also find rad artists via Instagram Ads as well haha! 😂
In fact, this is how I found Mamono World! Once day this exact shirt popped up on my Instagram when I was watching stories, and I INSTANTLY had to cop it! 🤯
I don't know it's so funny to me, but the idea of like Retro video game characters going to Fast Food Places is so sick to me. Going back to growing up with little money but also going out skateboarding all the time, My body had to have been at least like 80% fast food when I was 16. So this style to me is like double nostalgic for me if that makes sense. 😅😁
Though, it seems like Mamono World kind of stopped doing this Retro Game X Fast Food style clothes, and is now really just focused on Snoic Adventure inspired designs. Which as all still bangin' ESPECIALLY all the Chao pieces! 😩🦔🐋
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Whew! That was a lot! Sorry, I got a little carried away there! But I am so so so stoked to start a discussion with you about Style and Fashion! Again, I don't think it's something we've chatted about before here yet! 🤔😅😎
Anyways! And that's really all I wanted to share in this chapter of the Kaiju Club haha! Stay tuned for the next chapter where I'll be sharing my first real attempt at designing, sourcing, and ordering clothes for Groovy Kaiju! 😎🦖🤯 Stay Groovy dude! 😎🦖🎉