At NOWHERE Takahashi sold his brand UNDERCOVER, while NIGO® ran his side as a "select shop" with imported streetwear. Within a few months, NIGO® realized he also needed to sell an original brand. He asked the graphic designer Sk8thing to think up ideas.

Sk8thing found his design inspiration from the Planet of the Apes films, which were being shown on Japanese TV at the time (it was the 25th anniversary of the original.)

But why "A Bathing Ape"? Sk8thing took the brand name — A Bathing Ape in Lukewater [sic] — from a line in the underground Takashi Nemoto comic, Inga Tetsudō no Tabi, where Nemoto describes an old man as being “like an ape in a bath of lukewarm water” (ぬるま湯につかった猿).

This longer phrase got whittled down to the first three words — A Bathing Ape — and by the time the brand hit the U.S., most knew it as just BAPE. (And at some point, the official English name got fixed to be A Bathing Ape in *Lukewarm* Water.)

@wdavidmarx 1993 just after bubble burst - interesting timing to start a fashion business. I wonder if/how that era impacted their creativity? was this an exceptional case, or an example of a bigger boom?

@JakeRockCity Consumer spending continued to increase until around 1997. Nineties street fashion was a gold mine.

@wdavidmarx Thanks for sharing this!

@wdavidmarx Thanks for this thread.