In 2024, it’s nice to imagine we’ve moved beyond the barriers of gatekeeping and exclusivity that have long dominated the fashion industry. Throughout the last 20 years as streetwear and luxury have continued to coalesce, fashion culture now rises as much as it is dictated top-down by the elite. People have more opportunities than ever to have a serious run at fashion success. While Virgil Abloh was a polarising figure, his ascension to the heady heights of Louis Vuitton was a clear signal to those 16-year-olds screen printing their sweatshirts, that they, too, could be the head of a storied legacy house. While young designers can get started more easily than ever, it’s still difficult to break through beyond being an indie brand. What’s missing? The access to platform, infrastructure, and distribution – a gap that Kenzo Nakamura and Tim Nolan are trying to bridge, through Harmony-NY. 

Envisioned as a new way of organising a streetwear label, Tim and Kenzo describes Harmony-NY as a New York headquartered streetwear label run by a ‘global creative collective’. Departing from the norms of conventional fashion brands, Harmony-NY operates as a decentralised system with a collective of 1000 'key holders’, comprising 900 purchasing members and 100 creatives who earn keys through application to control the brand.

 While Harmony-NY will be headed by a Creative Director elected every two years, community control sits at its core. Pivotal decisions, such as the brand's name, and certain product decisions are placed firmly in the hands of the community. Key staff, including graphic designers and pattern cutters, will also be hired from within Harmony-NY’s ranks thereby boosting access to work on a brand with a broad distribution. 

It’s Kenzo and Tim’s hope that, through Harmony-NY, a new generation of fashion leaders will emerge boosted by the power of community and hopes to champion the LVMH ‘up & coming streetwear talent’ award. In this interview, we sit down with Kenzo and Tim to get an inside look at Harmony-NY, how they intend to balance creative direction with community control, and what the collective might look like in a decade’s time. 

How did the idea of Harmony-NY come about and why did you decide to collaborate with each other? 

Kenzo – I’ve long been captivated by the concept of Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs), and for a long time, I’ve harboured a goal to sculpt a DAO-like structure into a design collective. I started off at Meta, but post mass layoffs in 2022, I yearned for something beyond the classic corporate world. That’s when I created Harmony-NY. I remember watching Project Runway with my girlfriend, and I thought, “ok great, how can I recreate this in mixed-reality, and integrate this with a community dialogue?” Fast forward seven months, Tim and I have been grinding to solidify this new concept of Harmony-NY. All we need to do now is propagate the word and set it in motion. 

Tim – Oh, a number of things. I’ve always envisioned technology as a backbone to any of my projects. I haven’t delved into the web3 aspect like how Kenzo’s done, but the amalgamation of a collective and a design studio has been a recurring theme in my orbit. I prefer the physical. Real things. Real objects. Real products. Kenzo’s vision for the project caught my attention because of this. Not only from a web3 standpoint, but as an opportunity to amplify the conversation from the digital space and transfer it to the tangible world of streetwear. A single meeting with Kenzo was all it took, and I was all-in. 

“We’re all about listening and embracing an evolving dialogue.”

Harmony-NY will have to tread a delicate balance between community control and creative direction. How will you attract the right people to membership and how do you plan to balance between a clear creative direction and community input? 

Ken – Our criterion for inclusion in Harmony-NY is straightforward. We seek individuals with a unique taste, a passion for the community and creativity. We want them to be contributors and know that they have an integral part within the design process. 

Tim – Navigating this delicate balance between a clear creative direction and varying community inputs has always been a subject of deliberation. I envision something dynamic –a forward direction with the classic esoteric taste from the creative directors but augmented by the community. The leaders of the collective will shortlist the creative directors, but the community picks other aspects like… what should the label name be, which items will make it to the seasonal collection, or colorways and material decisions of the items in each seasonal collection. Critical decisions are narrowed down by the board and the creative director. Then, it will be presented to the community as options, so that they are involved in shaping the trajectory of the label with each collection. In the end, it’s the community that will be living through these limited-edition collections. We’re all about listening and embracing an evolving dialogue. 

Tim, you’ve mentioned that your past work has always involved culture. You were Chief Creative Officer at VICE for several years. How did you approach messaging to communicate a certain ‘taste’ level for Harmony-NY. Is Taste something cultivated, or is it merely subjective? 

Tim – My definition of taste is a thought or an idea at the apex of what the generation wants at that time. But I think the main question lies here is: how do we control the taste level of these individuals; what weight can we have from the input to affect the output? We don’t know. If we had the answers, we’d be the same as every fashion label out there. But one thing is for sure, the nebulous web around Harmony-NY allows the label to go places it wouldn’t otherwise. The opportunity allows us to grow in different directions every two years (which will drive infinite value to the pieces and previous collections. You can’t get the same shirt from Harmony-NY every year because it changes depending on who the creative director is. 

Shifting away from the creative aspects, how do you plan to reward the community for their inputs?

Kenzo – Our goal is to create an entertaining experience for the community to participate through events once a month, and access discounts as well as exclusive drops dedicated solely for members and key holders of the community. When a person buys the keys, they are allowed to do many things. For example, they will have some power to control the streetwear label (Headquarters situated in NYC), hold a collector’s edition box set (depending on average mint price), select free garments (depending on average mint price), have access to monthly design meetings, gain tickets for our runway shows and events, have first exclusive access to all drops and more! 

“Streetwear is guarded – a singular vision crafted by small team and put out to the public… And that is the gap we are trying to fill in!”

How do you see Harmony-NY’s trajectory in the next 5 to 10 years?

Ken – Harmony-NY’s unique structure allows a direct feedback loop from consumers voting on creative directors, shaping parts of the design cycle, adding a layer of dynamism to the label. We hope that the decentralised decision-making structure ensures constant evolution, breaking away from the repetitive fashion cycle. Our first two garments are coming in the next month. We are collaborating with a web3 artist, Nearbound (@nearbound) and a streetwear talent, Ian Alexander (@ianalexander.studio)

Tim – Let’s be honest, some people might buy the keys for bragging rights, and some are committed to the idea and trajectory of the label. But, to build on what Kenzo mentioned, there is a gap we are trying to bridge. We’re trying to create a dialogue between generations. Streetwear is guarded – a singular vision crafted by small team and put out to the public. The infrastructure is the main barrier. You see so many streetwear labels popping up, but they can’t push through a certain threshold. And that is the gap we are trying to fill in! We’re not just giving them the path, but also the vehicle – a vehicle to find their own version of success. 

Do you see fashion continue to become more decentralised or will it reach a tipping point where the acceleration of subculture becomes too much to fathom, and consumers start wanting authoritative guidance once more? 

Tim – There are countless subcultures churning out every minute as we speak. We can’t really remove the idea of subcultures, or ‘cores’, but what we want to do is put it back to the individual to decide. Being specific to one ‘core’ is narrow minded. I believe people build their perceptions based on their self-curation. Rather than being overwhelmed from wave after wave, Harmony-NY focuses on giving keys for individuals to unlock their own possibilities, seeking to strike a balance and offer a sense of belonging. 

KENZO’S TASTE

Favourite late night spot? Red Bar in Tokyo or Mood Ring, NYC

What are you reading at the moment? In Praise of Shadows by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki

What’s on the playlist? 90s Triphop. Massive Attack and Portishead on Repeat

And on the wishlist? A Rimowa Attache

TIM’S TASTE

Favourite late night spot? I’m a creature of habit and tend to stay around the neighbourhood - Fanelli’s, Broome Street Bar, and The Soho Grand on Rotation.

What are you reading at the moment? Everything I need I get from you: How fangirls created the internet as we know it by Kaitlyn Tiffany, and RAYGUN: The Bible of Music and Style.

What’s on the playlist? Adventures on the Floating Island by Monster Rally

And on the wishlist? I’ve been re-evaluating my relationship with my closet and collection. Beyond purchasing some basics and footwear, I’ve been revisitng some older pieces from Y-3, Commes de Garcons and Helmut Lang - wearing them in new ways and combinations with some more low key pieces.

Follow Harmony-NY

Kenzo Nakamura: @K3N20x
Tim Nolan: @Tim Nolan
Harmony-NY: @_harmony_ny

Phoebe Philo’s launched her new label, Frank Ocean posted a snippet on Instagram and BTC is pumping once more. For the first time in years, we find ourselves quietly confident we really are going to make it.

Yet, despite the optimism in the air, there’s no denying that the web3 world looks fundamentally different than how it did two years ago.

So what’s changed? Led by the likes of Zora and Crowdmuse, a new web3 fashion culture is quietly emerging. Emphasising culture as opposed to hype and egregious pricing, web3 fashion culture is starting to look a lot more like its IRL counterpart, but with a democratic twist.

To find out more, we caught up with Isaac Ng who’s building product at Zora to lift the lid on what’s next for fashion in web3.

I want to start off with the shift in the function of NFTs. Across the board, we’re witnessing a shift away from NFTs as investments into NFTs that don’t have any monetary value but act as badges of affinity or appreciation. What do you think that represents to the holders? How does it make them feel?

I think NFTs are a representation of your taste. When you go to someone’s Spotify playlist, it tells you a lot about that person. The objects represent who they are as a person. Minting NFTs tells you a lot about a person in the same way. If you have a bunch of open editions or NFTs that *feel* a certain way, then that is a good representation of who that person is.

It’s the same as physical luxury. You’ve got the new money people who are into APs or old money people who are into Jaeger Le-Coultres. It says a lot about you.

I like A-Cold-Wall for example because I think Samuel Ross is a brilliant designer - he’s mentored by Virgil Abloh. With crypto, I think it’s very much the same [type of thinking] - aligning yourself with certain projects is the same as aligning yourself with certain brands. It's because you want to represent yourself publicly in a certain way.

A-Cold-Wall SS’23 Campaign

There’s a lot of chatter around multiplayer collaboration and democratisation creation in web3. Yet, there’s a tension with fashion which is often based on the creative direction of a single visionary. How do you see that tension play out? How do we overcome the cacophony of public opinion resulting on something that’s mediocre?

Multiplayer collaboration in theory sounds like a great idea, but once you have multiple conflicting opinions, you might come away with something mediocre because you’re trying to appease everyone. If you look at some of the most influential designers, it’s always been a very top-down approach. I think that’s because it’s art. These people are influential because they have conviction. They don’t take shit from anyone. Fashion isn’t like building a tech product when you get user feedback. Fashion’s very much about creating something that users don’t even know they want yet. Multiplayer creation and collaboration sounds great in theory but you need to be very cognisant around the fine line between being very inclusive of opinions, and just having a convoluted symposium of feedback. You can’t midwit it.

The public mainstream perception of brands is very in the BAYC “searing laser eyes” vibe. How can we shift that? Are the big brands friends or foes?

I think that the Aura Consortium blockchain is a really good sign. These brands want to come into this space. The reason why I’m bullish about them is because these brands are culture-makers. They’ve been amplifying culture for years. They also understand collectibles, and what it means to translate culture along different mediums. That’s through the fashion shows, their products, the story that they tell. They’ve got what it takes to change the perception of consumer crypto. A lot of people tell us that we need indie brands but I feel like that we should think of [established brands] as friends and as allies to amplify vision.

What do you think it is about Zora that makes it feel comfortable for people coming from an aesthetics background?

It’s funny - when I met my manager, we went to Acne Studios. We could talk about Bottega, we could go shopping together. I think it’s because Zora embraces culture in a way that no other project does in the space and elevates individual culture.

web3 talks a lot about fashion being inclusive - but that contrasts against luxury which is about aspiration. What do you think about this?

I don’t think luxury should be fully accessible because there’s a reason why people strive towards it. Let’s take cars for example. You get a Porsche 911 because you’ve worked your entire life towards it. I think luxury is not just a culture, but it also acts as motivation. Most people strive towards the upper echelon of society - maybe that’s a broken view of the world but there’s beauty in that too. Vintage luxury for example, feels like art, and there’s beauty in seeking it. My hope for web3 and luxury is that brands have a strong view of what culture should look like. They shouldn’t sell themselves out by trying to appeal to everyone.

Porsche x Aime Leon Dore 911 964

LIGHTNING ROUND!

Your house is on fire and you can only keep three things from your closet. What are they? 

A simple Uniqlo U tee. I like the predictability of it.

Uniqlo U Color Block Tee

A pair of utility pants because they’re useful and look good (these are from Undercover by Jun Takahashi).

Undercover by Jun Takahashi Utility Pants

A pair of shoes. Salomon XT-60s. They’re as good for trekking through the forest as much as for walking on the pavement.

Salomon XT-60 Sneakers

What’s underrated or overrated?

Korean high fashion like Ader Error. I think it’s because Japanese fashion still has a very strong chokehold in East Asia so when people think about Asian fashion, it’s very much Japanese fashion that comes to mind first.

The retail design and experience is incredible. If you go to this part of Seoul called Seongsudong - the stores there tell you a lot about where the state of mind is for fashion in Korea. They’re willing to do brands that other brands in other cities aren’t willing to do.

What’s something you’re into right now completely unrelated to fashion?

Running. There’s a lot of technicality behind running. The gear that you wear, the GPS watch, the shoes. Like most recently - I think there was this pair of Adidas; a one-time use pair of shoes that was designed to only last the length of one marathon because it was so light and thin.

FOLLOW ISAAC

Zora: @zaak.eth
X: @isaaccyn
Farcaster: @zaak.eth

Another day, another indie brand gets ripped off by a huge fast-fashion chain. What happens next? Usually nothing except maybe a sneaky Diet Prada post. It all seems inevitable. Yet, it doesn’t have to be. What if there was a better way for brands and creatives to work together? Now there is. 

Enter Crowdmuse - a new platform helping creators collaborate on products while maintaining ownership over their individual contributions. In the era of collab obsession, it’s no wonder why Crowdmuse has quickly become a darling of the fashion-tech scene.

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Yet, what makes Maz and Crowdmuse stand apart isn’t just what they’re building, it’s the energy they’ve cultivated – energy that has quickly amassed a devoted following. Their latest drop with web3 luxury collective, Slow Rodeo sold out in less than 10 days.  

Casually clad in a Story mfg. jacket (“I got it from their sample sale in Brick Lane” Maz casually remarks) and a black jumper with frayed sleeves, Maz, the co-founder of Crowdmuse, is a picture of laidback East London cool. I got a sense that a few decades earlier, she might have been the front-woman for a shoegaze band.

“Hey, how are you?!” she asked excitedly at the beginning of our chat in a Alexa-Chung-esque husky voice. She’s not asking just to be polite, she actually wants to know. It’s a stark contrast against the now slightly dystopian image of a tech founder in a hoodie and Allbirds but it’s this difference in aesthetic that captures a new breed of founder at the intersection of creativity and tech – culturally conscious, empathetic, and with immaculate vibes. 

Sitting down for a chat with Maz, we talk about sneaking copies of Dazed Magazine as a teenager, her vision for web3 aesthetics, and what’s next for Crowdmuse.

Welcome to the show Maz, you’re the co-founder of one of the most exciting fashion-tech projects in web3, but I want to take it back to the start. Where did your love for fashion and culture come from?

I’m North London born and raised – it’s such an amazing city to grow up in and has such a cultural mix of everything. I really enjoyed art and music growing up - especially music. My older sister would listen to a lot of classic 70s and 90s rock and it influences my music choices to this day. When it came to culture, I was very inspired by the early days of Dazed Magazine. In my teenage years, they had very daring imagery and growing up in a Middle Eastern household I wasn’t allowed to look at that kind of stuff so sneaking copies home was like my secret way of seeing the outside world and allowed me to feel seen.

You’re passionate about sustainability as well, could you tell us a little bit about where the passion emerged?

Back in university, I was already digging into sustainability in fashion, but things really started when I met my then-co-founder. He's British Bengali and he opened my eyes to Bangladesh’s massive textile industry.

We were both keen to dive in together, so we thought, 'Why not just go to Bangladesh and see what’s going on?'. Once we got there and visited the factories, we began to see the real picture. The more we dived in, the clearer it became how unethical the supply chain was. Big brands, ones we all know, were right there, producing garments in mass.

Seeing the working conditions and the material quality first hand was a real eye-opener – it hit me, ‘wow, this is seriously not good’.

That experience was a major wake-up call. It really showed me how corrupt the clothing industry was, both ethically and environmentally. And then, the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013. That was another huge shake-up for the whole industry. It pushed me even more to ensure sustainable and ethical practices for our own brand then and was involved with the Fashion Revolution movement, championed by Katharine Hamnett, renowned British fashion designer, best known for her political T-shirts.

How would you describe your personal style? Any particular designers that inspire you? 

My style is that I wear whatever the f*** I want *laughs*. I appreciate artisanal and handmade, slightly tailored looks. I’ve always admired Yohji Yamamoto in particular. When I was just getting into fashion at a younger age - I was looking at a lot of interesting fantasy-like drawings and stories by Yoshitaka Amano and Yohji was like Amano’s work come to life.  It’s very consistently black and gorgeous. I don’t necessarily wear a lot of Yohji but I like his approach. It’s more about design and the material than a particular print or logo.  One of the things I took away from his book was the idea of clothing as utility.  I really appreciated that Yohji had this unisex kind of design that was very functional. Women need pockets too!

‘Perpetual Revolution: The Paradox of Yohji Yamamoto’, ANOTHER MAGAZINE, 2018.

How would you describe your own philosophy on fashion? 

I don’t have a philosophy per se but I do believe that we’ve become so detached from our garments since clothing has become so accessible and mass produced. It’s why I founded my first-startup, RELLA - a sustainable fashion company which later became a Menswear clothing brand that helped match sustainable manufacturers in Bangladesh with UK brands to give transparency to consumers on where their clothes come from. I wanted to bring the story back to the material and the craftsmanship that it takes to make a garment.  

Personally I’m also trying to consume less clothing right now. I think that’s an important thing. Just buy items that are more expensive but longer lasting. I don’t want to buy T-Shirts over and over again because I know the unit cost of making a low priced tee which is just ridiculous. Aesthetically, it’s about finding the pieces that are gonna last me a long time. I’m happy to pay a higher price point because I know it’s made in a certain type of way. 

For the uninitiated, how would you describe Crowdmuse? Tell us about the idea of ‘multiplayer’ creation. 

Crowdmuse is a place where emerging artists and creators can come and create with brands, and where the brands are what we call ‘cultural brands’. ‘Cultural brands’ are brands that are niche, on the fringe. The idea of multiplayer creation (between the artists and creators, and the brands) is inspired by gaming and the difference between single-player and multiplayer. 

Fashion collaborations are very commonplace, they happen all the time, however, if a designer collaborates with a brand, it typically happens at a very, very high luxury brand level, where usually the collaborator has huge social clout. We want to make collaboration more accessible for artists and designers to collaborate together on a smaller scale on a repeatable model.

We also wanted to open up referencing and visibility of who's done what. If you're an emerging designer and an emerging artist, what you don't have is distribution. You have to constantly create content and show your work but it’s really hard to grow an audience on social media. You have to split your attention so you become complacent and forget about your craft, which is really f****** sad. 

Let’s accelerate a decade into the future. What would be a dream collab for Crowdmuse to set up? 

I get this question so often and it's really hard to answer this question well because there’s so many good ones out there! I’ll narrow it down to a couple that I've been absolutely obsessed with recently. 

One is a Moroccan designer called Artsi Ifrach. His work is very contemporary in execution but culturally inspired by Moroccan like garment making and crafts. I think someone like him - there’s such a huge opportunity for collaboration. F*** it - doing a collaboration with a furniture brand and Artsi would be a really interesting mesh of creativity.

I would also say that I’m a big fan of Colors Studio and the clothing they’re producing. That’s what’s exciting about creative collaboration - for example, having music producers or artists meshing with a fashion designer is such an unlock, because it's all culture, baby! 

It’s almost like mixing vibes, or creating vibes. 

Exactly! I love that. You're literally a vibe creator. 

I think that’s what’s really cool about collaboration between creators. I mean, think about how awesome it would be for new [music] artists to have access to really sick emerging fashion designers. It’s a myth that you can actually make money from streaming hence why all these tools are coming out trying to change this. But the one thing that gives them immediate income and the one thing that they still utilize is merch to sell to their fans.

But you know, they go to like, you know print on demand, boring like, “I'm gonna put my album print on a coffee mug kind of like websites” and it’s pretty s*****. It's a really kind of mundane experience that through collaboration, we could make it so much cooler. 

Let’s switch gears. You’re in web3 which is its own cultural microcosm. What’s working in web3 culture and what’s not? How do we understand ‘cool’ in web3? 

Oh, I think cool is just like being yourself and being inclusive. With some digital fashion projects, I felt they were trying to take the same exclusive, trad fashion vibe and bringing it into an internet culture that is like trying to just keep it real. 

What’s cool about web3 is that it’s like a corner of the internet where I can just say and be whatever the f*** I want. It’s a very welcoming place. 

I do think however, that web3 is having a cultural clash where communities are essentially just pushing a lot of content but the content can get repetitive.

Some might hate me for saying this but it's like they’re trying to drive metrics for activity and adoption to make their project look like, ‘oh this product is something that consumers want’. There’s a lot of volume push and utilising of free open edition mints. Mimicking similar metrics and user activity to web2 imo.

When it comes to that level of volume creation, there’s a danger web3 could lose its novelty and initial kind of exciting onboarding experience that it has now. 

I feel like you would have a good eye for this. Who’s the best dressed person in web3?

I'm quite biased and I would say that the best dressed person of web3 has to be one of the designers and artists that we work with called Wes. He blows my mind all the time when I speak to him.

He's an artist who came into crypto and he makes his own one of a kind fashion items and pieces that are handmade and intricate. He’s a designer and artist type but he’s not flash so he's quite minimal in the way he dresses - just a gorgeous person! 

LIGHTNING ROUND!

What’s on the playlist right now? 

Yussef Dayes, Black Classical Music Album

What are three things on your wishlist? 

I really want one of the jackets that Hugh Clark - one of the designers that we're working with, is designing….He’s recreating a Swiss military style jacket and making the pattern from scratch. 

I've also been eyeing up for a long time this Japanese designer called Hagedesu. He does really amazing patch recycled pieces. 

Finally, it’s cliche, but I want the new Salomons!

What’s a hangout spot you like? 

I’m working a lot these days but can catch me browsing through record stores on Portobello Road and drinking coffee at Cable Co or Layla.

Follow Maz and Crowdmuse

@crowdmuse
@mmazco

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