Soft power, minimal form

The tl;dr: there was a streak of design-y minimalism in clothing in the Western world for a couple of decades, thanks largely to Apple and tech. Then we experienced fractal societal collapse, and now people wear bulky coats, maximalist graphics, over-the-top couture-grade statement pieces, etc. This is armor, a way of ruggedizing, the clothes equivalent of everyone buying an SUV. You are at least loosely aware of this trajectory. We are here now.

Meanwhile, Japan has remained deeply collectivist, and so they spent the past three years taking care of each other and not really flinching. It looks like they did not get the memo about the rest of the world being on lowkey fire. The only pandemic closures I’ve seen so far have been American businesses.

That is why Graphpaper exists & persists. It acts as a planted flag in the center of the widening gap between those who correctly navigated the past few years on a societal level and, well, everyone else. It is a white cube in the middle of a cluster of white cubes, and in that cube are hoodies.

It is unclear, at first, whether Graphpaper is an art installation. You walk in and there are maybe ten pieces available, hanging from a single rack in the center of a white room. “Graphpaper for Women” exists in a back room, offering pieces that are not exclusively made by Graphpaper. They are, by comparison, shockingly maximialist and decorated. Upstairs, there are more ready-to-wear pieces by Graphpaper, mostly t-shirts that exist to anchor price for the hoodies that people actually want.