​Steve Aoki upgrades his look via a collab with the ‘Godfather of Streetwear’ Hiroshi Fujiwara

Welcome to a new season called the summer of Aoki. There might not be many cakes thrown this summer but there will be t-shirts worn during what's being called the “Summer of Aoki, Summer of Fragment, and Summer of Love.” Even amidst a pandemic, fashion lives on.

Actually, Aoki has been tapping into the world of fashion long before the pandemic but this downtime has certainly heightened his creativity outside of music. This time, he’s collaborated with streetwear icon Hiroshi Fujiwara and his brand fragment for a capsule collection called SUMMER OF, which dropped at the same time as his collab with RPG mobile game Arknights.

Launching today, the collection includes three t-shirts designed by Fujiwara himself made from 100% cotton. They come in three different colourways: electric blue, white and black. The graphic is a riff on the logo t-shirt and boasts SUMMER OF in large block text. Immediately below it appears a graphic of Aoki’s visage and a fragmented lightning bolt logo linked by a simple heart outline.

“We need more love especially this summer since we can't all be irl together,” said Steve Aoki on his Instagram ahead of his launch.

The t-shirts are available online at DIM MAK for $45 each.

Oft lauded as the godfather of Harajuku for his role in shaping streetwear culture as we know it, besides founding his own fragment brand, Hiroshi Fujiwara is also a musician and streetwear influencer who has worked with brands like Nike, Burton, Levi’s, Stussy, Supreme, Converse and Beats by Dre, as well as with artists like Takashi Murakami, KAWS and Eric Clapton, for whom he designed a guitar for that was custom made by Martin Guitars. He's also credited with being one of Japan's first hip hop DJs, and popularising the genre in Japan. More recently, the designer made headlines when we was spotted in fragment design x Air Jordan 3 sparking rumours that a shoe will drop later this year.

Elsewhere, Aoki has also teamed up with Chinese tower defence RPG called Arknights created by Studio Montagne for a new collaborative soundtrack. The duo premiered a music video for ‘Last of Me’, which features singer-songwriter RUNN, over the weekend and serves as the official theme song for the game’s Chapter 6 – Partial Necrosis. Watch the animated video below and stay tuned for an upcoming merchandise collaboration between the two set to debut shortly.

[via HYPEBEAST]