There's a tension that plays out constantly in every BAPE product: take this new field watch. It’s as authentic as they come with no visible variation - but for the all-important BAPEX branding, price and packaging.
Wearing this watch for the
past few days I realise that BAPE has less to do with Post Modernism and more
to do with Pop Modernism. It's not meant to be ironic or arch or any of those standard post-modernist notions we tend to associate with other kinds of appropriation.
Like a Rolling Stones remake of a blues recording by Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters back in the sixties, BAPE give us permission to engage with a culture we might ordinarily be excluded from.
Like a Rolling Stones remake of a blues recording by Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters back in the sixties, BAPE give us permission to engage with a culture we might ordinarily be excluded from.
They
remove what you might call the burden of history. In this instance it’s the
US military circa the Vietnam War, in other cases it might relate to the Ivy
League or to hip hop culture. By reframing a culturally symbolic product, BAPE
make it accessible to outsiders, allowing the fan or spectator to become a
participant in their own right. BAPE superimpose their own authenticity onto
the product and in doing so make it speak to everyone - except perhaps those
for whom it was originally intended.
This process of authentication is something BAPE haters don't
get; it’s sometimes too subtle a shift for them to take on as remotely valid. I can buy one of those field watches in an
Army & Navy store for a quarter of the price you can here them say,
missing the point entirely. Conversely for those who really appreciate the brand,
sometimes the more subtle the shift, the more valid the product becomes.
BAPE
celebrates its twentieth anniversary next year. Field Watch available from BAPE store, Upper James Street, London W1F.
