Bape, Beethoven, & the Bando Orchestra
It was one of those nights of looking at clothes that will most likely never be purchased. Hopping website to website, I arrived on Yahoo! Japan Auctions and did the routine search for my favorite brands. Typing “Bape” into the search bar sends me scrolling through a sea of trash released in the past years, occasionally passing a cool tee from the Nigo days. My blank stare hardly moves from some point behind the screen as I open an item in a new tab, scroll through the pictures thinking to myself "That's a nice tee," and close the tab with no thought of buying it. Scroll, Click, Close, Repeat. I don’t know how many times I repeated this process before a sweater caught my eye due to a familiar graphic of Beethoven. My brain went into overdrive. Where had I seen this sweater before? Considering the unhealthy amount of time I spent online everyday, I realized there was little hope in remembering where I had first come across this image. So, I conceded victory to the sweater for the night and fell asleep to A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas.
A few days went by and the sweater with Beethoven on the chest did not cross my mind at all. That wasn’t until I got a text from my brother telling me he was in Tokyo for the weekend, which prompted me to run a quick search for what he could proxy for me since the deals would be too good to pass up. Kapital first came to my mind, and within a couple of seconds I was on their webstore home page. And there he was right in with their new arrivals, the same Beethoven I stumbled upon on Yahoo! Japan just a few nights prior. Giving it little more thought than a "Hmm that's weird," I continued on with my day. I didn’t realize then, but floodgates had opened. Every time I was looking for clothes, I saw that face. When I’d take a break to look at Instagram feed, boom, Beethoven sneaking his way onto something else. I could not escape its grasp on me. Could it be my imagination? Baader-Meinhof phenomenon? Or is Beethoven himself haunting me?
Bape, Kapital, Undercover, Sasquatchfabrix, Warehouse Co., NexusVII, WTAPS, and The Soloist all have made clothing with the face of Beethoven on it. Kapital went as far as including his name in their F/W20 collection titled "Love, Peace & Beethoven." But, after a bit of digging, it appeared that only Japanese fashion brands were making tributes to the late Beethoven. Why were these brands doing so with such frequency? Was there more to it than simply following Bape’s successful footsteps?
So now it’s late and I’m researching Beethoven’s influence in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Musicology scholar Koshikakezawa Mai explained that performances of Beethoven have long been held in Japan. During the Meiji era (1868–1912), when Japan first fully embraced Western music, the government actively promoted German culture. Thereafter, the political liberalism of the Taishō era (1912–26) became associated with Beethoven. “He captured the hearts of Japanese people, and came to become celebrated as a true musical master," Mai explains. Beethoven’s influence in Japan continued to spread as a favorite of German POWs held during WWI. Appreciation for the German Composer grew so great that, once the war had ended, a group of former POWs dubbed the “Bando Orchestra” performed Beethoven’s Ninth for a Japanese audience outside of their prison.
Additionally, the Japanese use Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 to celebrate the end of each year. It's played in large concert halls beginning in December and can be heard throughout the country into the new year. For many, Beethoven is nothing more than a dead guy that made old music for old people. But for the Japanese, his music represents a time of celebration and nostalgia. Despite the impression one might get from seeing his face plastered on streetwear, the Japanese adoration for Beethoven is goes beyond style and speaks to a cultural remembrance and identity.
If you, like me, have discovered a sudden desire to welcome Beethoven, here are a few bangers from Grailed:
