That Is The Tempo: Angelo Baque

October 17, 2022

In a storefront on the Lower East Side, two men sit, talking about New York. The shop, at 62 Orchard Street, has long since been a retail storefront, but for the last seventy or so years, the space has been a suit shop owned by a Hasidic man named Sam. That’s one chapter of the city’s history. But the two men that occupy that same space today - Kunle Martins, fine artist, original member of the IRAK crew and founder of the streetwear brand of the same name, and designer Angelo Baque — represent another facet of the complex narrative that makes up New York, one that features some of the most iconic graffiti crews, multidisciplinary artists, skateboarders, and streetwear pioneers of the last quarter century.

And this very storefront is another piece of the same puzzle- it will be the first brick and mortar location of Awake NY, the brand Baque founded in 2012 while working as the Creative Director of Supreme. As two of the seemingly few "survivors of the 2000s," it feels fitting to have Martins play cartographer, mapping out for those of us on the outside the inside story of the success that has led Baque back to the same streets where it all began.

Interview by Kunle Martins
Introduction by Anna Zanes
Photography by Dan Martensen

"Our paths have always been kind of intertwined, but both of our trajectories — you reintroducing IRAK and the inception of Awake — has a lot to do with Virgil."

KUNLE MARTINS —When did we first meet?

ANGELO BAQUE— Well, I’d like to hear your version of how we first met - or when we first met. KM – Let’s do it like The Dating Game, with versions. For mine, I don’t really know, but I would assume it has something to do with graffiti writers wearing North Face somewhere on Broadway, somewhere between 8th Street and Houston. Either walking up or down, right in between that zone. Catching tags, maybe on McDonald’s, or The Wiz, or just standing around. Probably had some kind of Teddy Bear polo thing on....Who were you? You were friends with TCK people.

AB — I remember you because I worked at Canal Jean Company in ‘96, and I started seeing EARSNOT tags around the store. You know, a lot of people don’t know, but Canal Jean Company was a graffiti writer hub for boosting and for employment. I remember we were walking by the Cube, and Dove’s like, “That’s EARSNOT right over there.” Because we already had seen you on all the back streets. I think when you had just gotten that fire escape on Crosby, and you did the straight letter fill in, so I was just like, "Oh, this kid's getting up.” I remember you had big UFO pants, and—

KM— That I probably got at Canal Jeans.

AB— Probably. Mad skinny. Yeah. I remember that was the first time I met you.

KM— Happy. Right?

AB — So happy. Just really like, "What's up!"

KM— I just met Wombat the other day at [Public Access]. Reminded me of myself when I was happy, super new.

AB— Optimistic.

KM— Not tainted by any graffiti drums. You can do that now. You can write graffiti and not attend any graffiti functions, not have any graffiti circles, just be on your own. That was my thing. But I wanted so bad to be in. I quickly got ruined. Wow. So you wereworking at Canal Jean – that’s the end of an era. Were you around for Unique? Did you ever see that?

AB— Yeah. My sister's six years older than me, and we’re a very immigrant family. Wherever my sister went, I had to be there. I remember the first time going to Unique and seeing the airbrush station.

KM— I would imagine it was like the Alife of its time.

AB— It was just so bugged out, and the people that worked at Canal Jean Company in the basement were weird — that’s where they put all the weirdos. Unique was just full of weirdos. Everybody that worked there, I remember was a fucking weirdo.

KM— It sounds like a Netflic series, where they do a history of people who are now something else, like that Wu-Tang show. Just the version about people working at Supreme, or working at Alife, like, "Oh these are your graffiti heroes." So, when did you start Absurd?

AB— Absurd started in 2001, when I was working at Stussy. I had done my first freelance graphic for Jeff Staple. I did two tees, and I think I got pennies on the dollar — nothing against Jeff, that's what you got paid for graphics. I was just like, I think I could do this on my own." I went to Rich at Pro Graphics for my first run of t-shirts. I remember being stressed out having ten grand in cash on me, traveling on the train with that and having to bring the cash to Rich and do the thing, you know? Now I feel like people hold money in the streets like it’s nothing.

KM – It was your whole life. Ten grand meant everything. Plus, life was more hectic back then. Things could happen. And you had less experience making those connections happen, right? Plus, Rich is also a pseudo-Sopranos character, and will kind of make whatever he wants for you. I remember my second wave of IRAK t-shirts and hoodies. Well, the first hoodies and first long sleeves — the black long sleeves and the gray hoodies. Those were supposed to be black hoodies, and Rich was like, "We'll just do this. It's fine." I was like, "But that's not what I paid for," and he's like, "You're good." I was complaining to Rob [Cristofaro], co-founder of Alife, like, "Yo, what is up with your man?" And he's like, "That's Rich." It was almost like theme music played in the background when he said it. Pro Graphics was really good and professional, but Rich, I guess he had the market cornered or something. I mean, there were other options in New York, but he was doing stuff for Supreme.

AB – He had all the big boys at the time. So it was kind of a rite of passage to work with Rich.

KM – A lot of people came out of the Supreme and Alife umbrella who were making clothes. So there was probably a minute where he was fucking bubbling, kicking out all the little homies that wanted to do all-over prints. But Absurd was dope. I loved my EPMD Absurd sweatshirt. And then after Absurd, I feel like there was something else before Awake…?

AB – Nom de Guerre. I was there for a while.

KM – Wow. That’s another umbrella, Nom de Guerre. It was highbrow. It was a little erudite, and nose-in-the-air, Miss Me with all that lowbrow shit. Kind of like, “We don't care. We're definitely trying to not attract a certain kind of customer. We're aware that people aren't going to get it, and that's okay.” Design-wise, it was just daintier, just nicer, and the clothes were cut and sewn, right?

AB – Yes, most of the time. And it did well. I just think, like all great, amazing things, it was just ahead of its time. So, all the things that you say, it's funny. Some of it is true, and I wish it was that considerate. I'll only speak from my part, but being on the inside, the concern we had was, "How are we going to make money?" We went the complete opposite of what everybody else was doing downtown. Because remember, that was the height of the retail mafia. Alife, a NY thing, Supreme. It really felt like us versus everybody. It was like the old guard, and there was a handful of people that were really nice to us — and that's you. You were part of that crew that was very embracing of us.

KM – I mean, because you guys were cool. You're all friends. It wasn't like you were the lacrosse bros, or whatever, because that would've been different.

AB – And I don't think the intention was ever to be elitist.

KM – No, no, not at all. It was insane. There was no blanks. It was cut and sewn. It was more expensive. It was a whole thing. And then from there, wow. It's just so interesting to see what everybody's been doing this whole time, so much going on… So you're 44. It's 2022. How long have you been doing Awake?

AB – Six years, officially, since leaving Supreme. There was two years overlapping that it was more of a fun thing, which I don't count those first two years, because my priority was Supreme. But then in 2016, it was time to hit the road.

KM – Guys were like, "What are you doing? You have a fucking dope job. Why would you [do] Awake? It was cool, but I don't know if there's a future here, Angelo.”

AB – That was everyone that I told. No one really understood. Because right when I was working there, that's when the LV collaboration dropped. So it was the height, height, height.

KM – Also, people were psyched. Well, I'll speak for myself, I was psyched to see you there. Charles was working in the store. You were in the office. Finally my friends had positions of influence, and power, and value. And then you started doing Awake. It's always hard to leave, right? Can you [talk] about that — leaving something that's a sure thing, paycheck every week, insurance. And it was probably a job that you enjoyed, contributing to culture. A lot of people have a job. They get paid every week. They hate it. Can't stand it. And it's like they got nowhere to go, got a lot to lose if they leave that job.

AB – People that don't know the ins and outs just see the perspective. You can't put a price on freedom. That's what it boils down to, you know? My stress – I always say this to young kids or whoever I'm talking to – my stress today is my stress. It's not transfer stress from a corporation or an individual. This is my shit today. And to be honest, I'm stressed right now about this, you know? But I'll tell you one of the greatest benefits that I had working there was the ability to help support people in those 10 years. To help people jumpstart their careers, or restart their careers, or put some money in people's pockets. That shit was dope.

KM – So, what was your first collab that you did with Awake? Because you got that pretty popping, right? You got shoes, you got coats, you got stuff going on. You got a full line.

AB – I think the one that got us our respect was our first Asics collab. When we dropped those green and silver Kayano 360s, people were really into that, and I felt the shift. Because it wasn’t just another brand making logos. Remember that six years ago, everybody made a logo hat. Logo hat, logo tee, Instagram sweatshirt. That's kind of, what is it? The playbook or whatever. And nobody had really graduated into making cut-and-sew, or doing sneakers or whatever.

KM – You did that at a perfect time, where people wanted something else. They were ready for something else, and it was refreshing. Asics was refreshing, Awake was refreshing. And there were plenty of people with money that wanted that, and you saw it and you stepped right in, left Supreme to do your own thing. Really inspirational. It's really hard to do that shit.

AB – You're doing it yourself right now, too. Our paths have always been kind of intertwined, but both of our trajectories – you reintroducing IRAK and the inception of Awake – has a lot to do with Virgil.

KM – I am.

AB – It was serendipitous. Right when I left, Virgil started wearing the Awake hat, and shit just cracked off for me. And I saw the same thing happen with you, him rocking the IRAK hat, it felt like right as you were like, "All right, I'm going to do this on my own." The Adidas shoe cracked off, the hat cracked off. For a minute, I saw everybody rocking the hoodies. It was just like, "Oh, this is dope. Here we go. It's 2003 all over again."

KM –And I actually didn't want it to work out because I was doing art stuff. I was like, "Here, I'll make some t-shirts to go with the hat, with the sneakers, and then leave me alone." Because this never works out. This clothing shit never works out, or it hasn't in the past. It's always a bad relationship. But things just worked out. Virgil had a big part in that, too. Being in the right place at the right time, being of sober mind. Because I tell you, smoking up all my profits and snorting them all up was not good for business. But it had to happen. That was the whole point of me doing it, just to party. It was a clothing brand to fund parties, partying purposes.

AB – That's what happened with Absurd. I was at MAX FISH.

KM – I needed money to buy drinks and drugs. Not even to pay rent, it was so weird. And now this time around, it's completely the opposite. It's like, "Oh, who do I know that makes art that's been creating stuff that I can put on for this collab?" It's not even about me. It's about other people. It takes a lot of the stress off. So, this is a question I've been avoiding the whole time: why not just keep your shit online, bro? It's 2022.

AB – There's a few answers to that one question. The first one is, for my humble opinion, for the brand to be taken seriously, we need a physical space. It's time to graduate off Instagram. Two, part of the reason why I continue to do Awake is it makes the 18-year-old me happy, the kid that you met at the Cube, the one that carried silver click clacks, and fucking stole with Bonafide, and hung out with TCK. You know, my graffiti crew. That kid needs a space to hang out today. That space doesn't exist below 14th street. With all due respect to all the other businesses that exist — there's no place where the fucking outlier, native New Yorker kid that can just come, the shitty kid that hates his parents and needs a place to hang out. You talk about Unique, Canal Jean Company. You’ll remember when we met at the Awake store in 2022, and now we're working on this project together. It was all inspired by us chilling.

KM – That's what I'm saying. I love that connection. This goes back as far as I can remember. Who was inspiring, who that inspired, who inspired me. This is the epic story, you know? And it's still going. And not everybody makes it to the end.

AB – No. We're literally survivors of the early 2000s. The herd thinned. We met in the mid-'90s. A lot of people don't talk about the 2000s, as if it's not fucking 20-something years ago at this point. We were all kids running around in these very streets. Ludlow, Orchard, Rivington, Stanton, fucking copping, and shooting, and snorting, smoking. And here we are, starting our own businesses. You can't make this shit up.

KM – I shouldn’t be here.

AB – The title of all our books, you know what I mean?

KM – What do you do? What's left after all that? What's left is the memories of all the good stuff, what inspired you. This is you trying to take 10,000 to Rich again. It's like, "Yo what, how do you do this?" Supreme is in mad stores. Alife opened mad stores, or did that at mad times. You've never done this before. This is exciting. This is my peer. Again, this is someone I grew up with in New York doing something.

AB – Who's to say that there isn't going to be an IRAK store across the street next year? You know what I'm saying? Or Pot, or Barriers, or all these new brands that are popping up too, that obviously are taking notes from our books. I want to at least be at the forefront of newness. There's dope shit around here, too. You know what I'm saying? Bode's store is right down the block, Scarr's Pizza, Dimes. But there's nothing like this — with our history, our legacy.

KM – New York shit. This is some real New York. This is a New York story. It just makes me feel good. Because I mean, it’s all passing the Olympic torch. You know, you're a worthy runner.

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Fashion

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.