From Bootleg to High End: The Evolution of Otaku Fashion

Now more than ever, otaku-inspired gear is making the leap from its original cheap bootleg connotations. It’s made the transition from shoddy merch being sold on murky websites and Lower East Side back alleys, to its current heights of being a respected (and prohibitively expensive) partnership between a brand and a mangaka. Although luxury designers from the West are eager to cash in on the elevation of the otaku, either because it’s viewed as a passing trend or a homage to East Asia’s growing presence in mainstream mass culture worldwide; designers like NYC-based, Korean-born designer Yumin Ha have been perfecting the art of unofficial anime merch long before it became the mode. Yumin began his design endeavors from the perspective of a true fan, who couldn’t seem to find good quality merch that didn’t cost a week's groceries.

We talked to Yumin Ha at his Chinatown studio, to hear a bit more about his journey from a pure otaku to a pop culture-minded designer. During our talk, Yumin paid tribute to the disparate influences throughout the universe of manga, video games, and East Asian cinema that have shaped him. Yumin is a perfect example of turning your passion into a viable business while staying true to what his teenage self would find cool.

Ora Margolis— Hey Yumin, thanks for chatting with us! Could you tell us a little about yourself and how your brand Yumin Ha came into being?

Yumin Ha— Hey, thanks for having me. My name is Yumin, I’m from Korea but I spent the vast majority of my childhood growing up in China. I started like many others — by printing t-shirts in my dorm room when I had just moved to NYC.

It all began when I found out about Issey Miyake x Takashi Murakami’s collection under the great Naoki Takizawa’s direction. The same goes with the Yohji Yamamoto x Ishinomori Shotaro collaborations, COSPA x beauty:beast, and so on. I immediately had the urge to replicate them — and when I did see some of them in person, I was shocked to see it the collabs were good as I had envisioned them to be in my mind for so long, only to realize it had been done much better 2-3 decades ago. I want my work to bring back the strength of those designs for a new generation.

OM— Your brand has been described as “otaku-core” by some, due to the anime, manga, and East Asian pop culture references you infuse in your designs. In your own words, what is an “otaku”?

YH— An otaku for me, is someone who is deeply passionate about a subculture. That’s all it is — but for many, it comes with a fairly negative connotation of obsessiveness. Not to say that an otaku should radiate that type of energy … but it’s usually the case that love for these art forms usually becomes a perverse fascination that otaku like myself have.

Being an otaku is what allows me to discern and make design choices when printing or designing garments. The knowledge I gained over the years by reading my father’s manga collection allows me to conjure up designs that I don’t think would have been possible without being an otaku.

OM— If you were to drop the word otaku anytime before the last three years, the idea of a socially awkward weirdo would probably come to mind. But now people embrace that label, how did this shift come about?

YH— Within the past decade, the general perception of anime for people changed, where the “outsider” connotation is almost non-existent at this point. That’s probably due to a lot of reasons, but mostly because anime has become much more accessible. This “shift” in attitude towards anime and manga, luckily for me, has worked in my favor. I’m very thankful for the fact that I can blabber about whichever manga I’m obsessed about without being (hopefully) too otaku about it.

I think the biggest shift for me was that just as I started printing these bootleg “non-existent” products in 2017, and at the same time so did the rest of the fashion industry. I think nowadays it is very common for conglomerates and giants in the fashion industry to take an anime IP and slap it on their products.

An otaku for me, is someone who is deeply passionate about a subculture. That’s all it is — but for many, it comes with a fairly negative connotation of obsessiveness.

OM— Many designers have been inspired and even devoted entire collections to their favorite manga/anime series; why do you think fashion and manga have such a close relationship?

YH— To go back to Yohji’s knitwear that incorporates Ishinomori Shotaro’s collection, I think it becomes fairly evident that certain chapter panels/illustrations just work perfectly when printed onto garments. I think seeing a print on someone versus seeing it in manga form/on screen, in general, is a very different experience. Sometimes the difference in size, color, and print technique actually brings forth the strengths of an illustration that is quite limited in it’s “original” manga form. In some ways, fashion simply takes the artistry found in manga to a different dimension.

OM— Your designs, flip the idea of unauthorized “bootleg” merch being a mere cheap copy by making your designs thoughtful/high quality. What was your thought process behind leveling up the idea of bootleg fan merch?

YH— Back when I first started buying and selling a lot of anime merchandise, I noticed that the ones that were truly up there in quality were already so coveted that the prices didn’t seem reasonable to me. I wanted to be able to wear my favorite anime character shirt, without having to drop $500 on it. That was my initial thought process behind printing a couple of shirts for my friends. Ultimately I want to provide something more for people who demand a higher level of detail and quality in anime merchandise.

OM— Your studio and home are located in the heart of Chinatown, a neighborhood that’s influenced a lot of your creative work. How do you feel about the recent change/ gentrification that the neighborhood has gone through? Does that affect the area’s creative spirit at all?

YH— Although I am Korean, having spent most of my childhood in China I think I’m very fortunate to be able to have made close connections with the community around me. Alice, who is my broker/neighbor, literally got me this office that’s right in front of where I live. And to see all these Cantonese/Fujianese grandpas and grandmas wear the most obscure combination of clothes always inspires me to create something that would look almost — natural; which arises from the eclectic combination of multiple articles of clothing stacked on top of one another. It’s always a pleasure to see a Cantonese chef with a cig in his mouth, with a Yankees cap completely dripped out, in some bootleg puffer and wide khakis.

OM— What anime and manga are you currently into?

YH— Just finished Kokou no Hito and it was solid. Since I was kid, I’ve been influenced mostly by works in my father’s manga collection, I’ve always been a big fan of Giant Robo OVA, Yotsuba, Gash, 20th Century Boys, H2, Ping Pong, Phoenix … endless — really.

Within the past decade, the general perception of anime for people changed, where the 'outsider' connotation is almost non-existent at this point.

OM— What makes you happy?

YH— Making funny t-shirts. Taiwanese New Wave and HK action films. Rereading/watching One Piece.

OM— What’s your advice for young designers thinking of starting their own brand?

YH— Make what you think is cool.

OM— Are there any artists/designers you want to collaborate with in the future?

YH— I was lucky enough to have collaborated with multiple artists and brands along the way … I really hope I can design for some of Kaikai Kiki’s artists as part of an official collaboration.

OM— What’s the future of Yumin Ha looking like, is there anything you’re excited about on the horizon?

YH— Yes — we have tons of winter gear coming at the end of the year: puffers, balaclavas, windbreakers — and very exciting official collaborations with artists from China, Korea, US, and many more. I can’t wait to share what I have lined up.

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After 30 years and over 100 cult fragrances, COMME DES GARÇONS PARFUMS 1994–2025 BY SIMONETT & BAER launches this month

December 17, 2024

“I have to add that the topic is, of course, an irrational one, because it's not art and it's not fashion. It has to do with scent, which is something in the air,” explains Dino Simonett, renowned art-book maker and designer/publisher of the new COMME des GARÇONS x SIMONETT & BAER book, which details 30 years of CDG perfumes.

“The moment you smell something is irrational,” he continues. “This book transports you and brings you to the idea behind the perfumes. People have gotten thousands of art catalogues from me, but this fucking perfume thing really drives people a little bit crazy, you know? Because everybody has this bottle; and that bottle smells like this on them; and this bottle I need; and all the memories and everything. I like it a lot that we made this.”

As fans and family of the world’s coolest brand prepared to gather at Dover Street Parfums Market in Paris to celebrate the launch of the book, our Editor-At-Large Paige Silveria shared some coffee and cigarettes with Simonett to discuss his wild trajectory, making books with Joseph Beuys and Tilda Swinton early on, and the importance of nonconformal thinking.

By Paige Silveria

This fucking perfume thing really drives people a little bit crazy.

Paige Silveria: Tell me about yourself. You make books.

Dino Simonett: My books are my art. Each book might be a painting or sculpture. And you should not do the same sculpture all the time. When you hike somewhere, you never should go the same way back home — this is something my mother taught me when I was young. In the same way, it's boring to make the same stuff all the time. So I try to find a way to invent my own language.

PS: This book you’ve made is really beautiful.

DS: It’s hyperrealistic larger-than-life images of boxes and flacons in an endless row presented on paper the thickness of a children’s book.

PS: I loved how it said in the press release that you woke up one Sunday morning and the idea for the book suddenly came to you.

DS: The backstory is that Remo Hallauer [COO of COMME des GARÇONS International] is a true book lover. We met at the Offprint book fair in Paris. And one day, shortly after peak COVID, this email came from him asking if I’d think about a possible collaboration with one of the young stars here — and no hard feelings, but it didn’t work out. So then, as it is in life, which is the essential thing, you have to have an idea. And most of the time, they’re not good enough. You have to have another and another and then you go, Ah ha! Perfume.

PS: And you’d already been pretty familiar with their fragrances?

DS: I’ve known this stuff since the beginning. I wore the first perfume they created. It was part of my life all the time, and I thought, It's so funny. There’s a connection with how I make the books: like two, three books a year, all collaborations and each is different. Just like their perfumes. So I immediately texted Remo.

PS: And what perfect timing, with the 30-year anniversary.

DS: Yes, but this was two years ago or so. I hadn’t had the jubilee in mind. It might not look like much, but there was a lot of work to do.

PS: Many of the advertisements and images weren’t archived, physically or digitally, right? You had to search all over for a good portion of the material?

DS: Well we also had to wait for the official deal to go through in the beginning. Adrian Joffe [President of COMME des GARÇONS International and Dover Street Market International] wanted to do it but he didn’t have the mind space at the time; they were about to open the Dover Street Market here in Paris. So we were on our own for a bit, developing the project from zero. We looked all over the Internet and tried to create the chronology. I had a young guy helping me. He kept reminding me to be patient and to continue to work on growing the book. The door was open, but we had to wait in front of the next room. So we took little steps to prepare ourselves. And stuff slowly worked out.

PS: And thank God for the Internet.

DS: Yes, because as you mentioned, there was no archive. We thought surely they’d have something in the basement. But no, that didn’t exist. At one point they sent us a list of all the perfumes so we had a clear checklist to manage. I had to become an expert.

PS: There are so many, over 100?

DS: Yeah, and at one point the CDG team was activated. It was like a machine and in the spring suddenly a load of stuff was coming. First we had to grow the grapes, then make the wine and then the grappa. And at the end, it's a really strong grappa. And so things came together, and then one day Adrian said, “All is fine, but Rei [Kawakubo] must now also approve it. This is how the system works.” But nobody had told me! So Remo met with Rei to show her the book.

PS: That’s a bit of pressure!

DS: She could have said no and we’d have to throw everything in the garbage, two years of work. There was indeed a little bit of pressure. But it was fine. She liked the book. Then at the end of this summer we met again and they asked if they could have some of the finished copies on 20 November in Tokyo. I said, “I’m sorry, what?” He was thinking that the book was finished, you know? I told him we still needed a lot of material to finish it. Sometimes it's nice though to have this pressure. It's motivating and thrilling when you finally accomplish it all.

PS: Let’s go back. How did your upbringing inform who you are?

DS: It has to do with nonconformal thinking. Most people think the same. And we’re constantly pressured as well, by everything around us to conform. You have to really fight to keep your head and so I had this upbringing with this rather eccentric mother who was absolutely nonconformistic in every way. She was resolute. Why should we follow the path of the masses? It was never my thing. Voilà.

PS: How were you in school?

DS: I was not so good at school. I was only skateboarding at that time. I was on the Swiss National Team. I even was here in Paris at a European championship when I was 15 at the Trocadero. And my mother said, “You are not going to school anymore. You need an apprenticeship. It makes no sense to send you to school any longer.” I was independent and had my first salary at 16.

PS: What were you doing?

DS: I was a carpenter making tables, chairs, all that stuff. All my friends went to high school with like 16-week holidays, while I had only four. And so it was really, really tough shit for a 16 year old. But I learned two important things. The first one was discipline; seven o'clock each day it started and lasted nine hours. And the second thing was precision; you have to do things right. People always said to me that the apprenticeship was good as I’d really use it for the rest of my life. And I always thought that was such bullshit. But actually, it's kind of true. And so anyways, the moment I finished my apprenticeship, the very last day of the last test, I went on the Interrail for one month and never went back to a carpenter shop.

PS: What’d you do after?

DS: I wrote a letter to this very super famous music guy, Claude Nobs who was organizing the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, telling him I’d like to work there that summer. I mentioned that I’d just finished my apprenticeship for carpentry. He phoned me back immediately after getting the letter. He said, “Oh you’re a carpenter? You can come right now.” He was renovating his apartment in Montreux. So I stayed and worked there alone while he was up at his chalet. I felt like Kevin McCallister from Home Alone in this completely furnished apartment. And then the festival started, and there was this guy from New York doing a large mural painting. It was Keith Haring. I had no idea who he was. We became friends. Then I met George Benson and Herbie Hancock. It started from nothing and then one thing comes, another thing comes, another thing comes. This is how I started, which is maybe not the natural way. But I was following my intuition and taking chances and putting myself out there.

PS: And you're going after what you have a passion for.

DS: I think that’s the best way to live one's life. It was like my own private art school. I met all the guys I was totally hot about. I met Joseph Beuys and told him I wanted to do an art project with him. I got his number and he told me to ask for his assistant. But I took everything for granted, what people said to me. So I had this phone number in Berlin. And I called the guy 20 times until this fucking meeting with Beuys finally happened. And we met and made a small collaboration art magazine called “Quer.” You just have to stick to the stuff.

PS: Wow. You don't still have one of those copies around, do you?

DS: I had one and I brought it to Remo at one of our meetings. Adrian saw it and immediately took it … I hope he gave it back to Remo. Adrian has a pile of my stuff that he wanted to see, so that’s good.

PS: Yeah, of any coffee table in the world for it to be displayed, his is probably in the top 10.

DS: So then I decided my dream was to be a film director. There was a film school in Berlin that I applied to. They only took about 18 people from 600. We waited all week to see this list on the wall for the final call back meeting. And my name wasn’t there. I was like, “Shit!” And then a week later, I received a letter saying I’d been accepted. Later the director told me it was clear enough with my application and the art magazine I’d sent that I’d be accepted. I don’t say this to brag. I say this to tell you that every young person that wants to go somewhere, all they have to do is fight. You have to get out of your house and your small town and your comfort zone and all that shit.

PS: I agree. So you’ve made films?

DS: I made a feature movie and went to the film festival. It was really amazing and everything, but I was not Tarantino, you know? So it’s the last semester and Tilda Swinton is supposed to teach a seminar. I really wanted to attend it. It would be the cherry on top of the cake. Then she postponed it once, then twice. The third time, I’m on the tube and there’s a woman in front of me with a newspaper that says that Tilda’s super mentor, Derek Jarman, had passed away. It’s the very Monday morning that her seminar is set to begin. And I thought, Oh shit. She’s not going to be there. But then she was there after all and it was a fantastic week. There were only five of us students and we all fell in love with her. And she fell in love with us. I’ve known her since.

PS: I can only imagine. How’d you make the transition into books?

DS: You have to find out what you're really good at. I had long discussions with this guru, an old guy who was a very diligent, very bright guy. I was really miserable, feeling directionless. He asked me why I wasn’t continuing with filmmaking. And I couldn't give him an answer. Then he said right into my face, “Probably it’s because you’re not good enough.” The message was one-hundred percent received. It was a relief; I'm not a bad person. This guy told me the truth, and I could accept it. And when you can do this, you can figure out what you actually want to do, what you’re actually good at. I started making books. I made one with another film director. And we visited Tilda at her hotel, bringing one to her as a present. As we’re knocking, I thought to myself, If I did another book focused on people in this business, it’d have to be her. And she opens the door, looks at the book and says, “Oh, I would like to have a book like this on me.”

PS: These situations seem unreal.

DS: I spent five years on her book, which was an enormous success. It included stills from all her films and launched it in different cities. Fantastic shit.

PS: And now you’ve just released this soon-to-be iconic CDG book.

DS: I've learned to be patient; things can take you years. This book with Adrian and Remo took two years and I didn’t even know if it was going to be approved! Follow your dreams as much as you can. It's not so important which dream it is exactly. If I see a step in front of me, I try to take each chance I get. This is what I wish for everybody, in whatever situation you find yourself, start to do something with nothing. This book started with just a simple idea. You can not find anything like this on the Internet, this compilation, this narrative. It’s something we had to bring together with enormous work. And here we are. I think in our digital, splattered times sometimes you have to make something which is real. That you can sit with and focus on in silence and really take time alone with it.