PRIDE & POWER
During my time working at Asa Kazingmei, a label known for its edgy and bold designs, I had the opportunity to delve into leather work—primarily using cow, sheep, and goat skin. My mission was to create a street-ready, grunge-inspired look that pushed the boundaries of typical leather fashion. Armed with my cursor and paintbrush, I set out to transform a classic biker jacket into something distinctively modern and rebellious.
I found myself experimenting with a design that took a more raw and primitive approach—an attempt to fuse tribal and apocalyptic elements in a single garment. Having predominantly worked with leather in my earlier pieces, this marked a pivotal shift, as I ventured into creating something with a rustic, washed-out effect using denim for the first time.
Working with denim presented its own unique challenges. My initial idea was to outline the design using a silver pen, but the rough texture of the denim made this task far more difficult than I had anticipated. The ink from the pen would fade almost immediately after application, and I had to repeatedly redraw the outline as I painted. Yet, this frustration pushed me to become more inventive, forcing me to adopt a new approach in how I layered the colors and created depth.
The focus of the design was a tribal lion, a symbol of strength and resilience. To capture the raw power of the lion, I carefully blended shades of dark brown, burnt sienna, and ochre, meticulously shading the creature’s mane and facial features to give it a lifelike and fierce appearance.
The red accents around the lion’s nose and on its teeth added the tribal and apocalyptic edge I was after. The subtle yet deliberate use of red not only gave the design an aggressive and raw feel but also tied the look into the overarching apocalyptic theme I wanted to explore.
For the accompanying wing design, I worked with different shades of blue, created by mixing white and black paints. This contrast between the earthy tones of the lion and the cooler tones of the wing gave the piece a mystical quality, almost as though it symbolized the merging of two worlds—tribal and futuristic, earth and sky.
Painting on denim was an eye-opening experience. The material’s texture, similar to a rough canvas, worked in my favor, providing a level of depth that made the shading pop in a way leather couldn’t. It allowed the paint to settle into the fabric naturally, giving the design an almost organic feel, as if the artwork were part of the fabric itself.
This piece, with its rough outlines, bold color choices, and the inherent texture of the denim, felt like the perfect precursor to what would later become the Bionic SR19 Collection. It was the first time I fully embraced working outside of leather and incorporated a mix of ancient and apocalyptic aesthetics, a combination that would continue to evolve in my later designs. This jacket was a journey into experimentation, but also the foundation for the future direction of my creative work.
