The BAPE phenomenon began in 1993, with a small shop in trendy Harajuku. Nigo created clothes with his signature ape designs and camouflage prints, then employed the age-old marketing strategy of exclusivity.
He carefully rationed his creations -- producing extremely limited numbers, giving half of them away to trendy club-mates, and selling the other half.
BAPE clothes became the ultimate badge of street credibility, and demand spiked because there was hardly any supply.
In the past decade BAPE ha