GUARDIAN PORTRAITS is a collection of vector illustrations I made featuring people I look up to. Guardians of their industries, guards of progress and innovation. When I first started this project, I began with three icons: KIM JONES, KANYE WEST, and NIGO.
Each of them has contributed massively to the culture of fashion and design, and in different ways, they’ve all shaped the lens through which I view streetwear, creativity, and longevity.
It’s been a while since I last touched this series, and I thought it was time to add another name: HIROSHI FUJIWARA.
It still blows my mind how, up to this day, FRAGMENT DESIGN remains a small team. Essentially it’s just three people, with Hiroshi at its core. Maybe that’s what drew me to make this portrait. I relate to that sense of being a one-man army, running your own design brand, wearing every hat, and creating from instinct more than structure.
Hiroshi is known as the Godfather of Streetwear. He’s the man behind what we now call ‘streetwear’ and the person being held responsible for Ura-Harajuku phenomenon (the rise of Japanese streetwear culture in the backstreets of Harajuku, Tokyo, during the 1990s). Under his store called NOWHERE, he supported and housed brands BAPE (Nigo) and UNDERCOVER (Jun Takahashi). Collaborator with giants like Nike, Louis Vuitton, Pokémon, Moncler, Maserati, and Sony, FRGMT recently did a collab with Valorant, which hits home for me since I’ve been building that same bridge between streetwear and esports through LOVE ARMY®.
In one of my favorite interviews with him, Hypebeast Radio’s BUSINESS OF HYPE by Jeff Staple, Hiroshi told stories of how he works, his process, and how he basically just does what he does. No grand plan. Just energy, curiosity, and alignment. If he feels the vibe with a brand or project, he goes for it. I like that. It’s honest. It’s how I want to keep creating – not out of obligation, but out of genuine love for the process.
One memorable part was when Jeff asked how he felt about being a kind of prototype designer, where brands might continue ideas he started, even without him later on. He said he’s more interested in sparking the idea than owning it. As a designer, that resonated with me deeply. You’re not always there for the applause. Sometimes you’re just there to plant the seed. To build something that inspires movement, in the proper environment.
That’s the kind of creative spirit I want to embody too. Whether it’s through LOVE ARMY®, my illustration work, or collabs, I want to be the kind of designer who can push for people to see beauty in the overlooked and possible through a different perspective. To be one who spots opportunity in chaos and makes something meaningful out of it.
This kind of inspiration, drive, and fire, is why I made this Guardian Portrait of him. To remind myself that if Hiroshi can do it like that with FRAGMENT, I can too.