The crowd outside Awake NY’s new flagship store on Orchard Street last week reflected founder Angelo Baque’s goal of creating a “multi-generational brand” with releases that appeal to more than one age group of streetwear fans. There were old heads paying respect like Stash and Clark Kent, alongside younger downtown figures such as Paloma Elsesser and Victor Vegas. A-Trak and Tremaine Emory were hanging, as well as 18-year-olds who likely hopped on a crosstown train just for the opening. Angelo was even seen holding a friend’s baby, literally nurturing the next era of New York creatives.
“There was a good representation of the last 30 to 40 years of downtown New York there,” the founder of Awake NY told i-D the following day, when the shop was officially open to the public. He added that he likes to joke he’s “downtown retired,” but the sea of influential artists supporting the brand and its creator suggested otherwise.
Regardless, one thing was clear from the launch-turned-block party: Angelo and Awake are fostering a community of cross-generational New Yorkers and fashion zealots, and it’s clearly resonating. The brick-and-mortar store extends the brand’s emphasis on ethos to a physical space, one that will continue to push Awake’s mission to embody “the diversity that continues to define the city’s landscape” — be it through clothing, charitable work and mutual aid, and its collaborations with organizations as eclectic as the UPS, ASICS and the Gil Scott-Heron estate.
To help amplify those goals, while also enticing a younger cohort of streetwear fans, Angelo, who’s 44, recently brought on Hugo Mendoza — a 30-year-old Bronx native, former manager at Stüssy and general man-about-town — as Awake’s Brand Director. “Hugo has youth. He has energy, man,” Angelo said. “I feed off of that and it both inspires me and pushes me.”
Angelo worked at Supreme for ten years, serving as Brand Director and something like a consigliere to James Jebbia. Now that he’s carrying his own torch, he needed a partner-in-crime who could fill a similar role to the one he formerly held at the skatewear institution. “It’s very mirror-like with Hugo. When people ask me about Hugo and our relationship, I literally compare it to what James did with me. It’s the same play.”
Awake NY is continuously coming into its own, and the latest collection offers a mix of graphic T-shirts sporting imagery of Miles Davis and Gil Scott-Heron, dip-dyed button-downs with exclusive art by Tercer Mundo, and cut-and-sew items like mohair and wool cardigans. There’s also knit-trimmed vintage bombers, wool Harrington jackets and even sweater vests, situating Awake NY as an outlet with one foot in the streetwear space, the other in tasteful-yet-vibrant menswear. “You could be 15 or you could be 50 and you can wear Awake and not feel goofy,” Angelo says. “That’s something I always take into consideration with design: ‘Can I wear that five years from now?’”
To celebrate the Awake flagship’s debut, as well as reflect on its evolution as it slides into a new epoch, i-D linked with Angelo and Hugo to discuss their nascent partnership. The two New Yorkers weighed in on what they each bring to the table, how they’re ensuring the shop will become a community hub “with soul” and not just a retail space, and what it means to be a New York brand at a time when fashion is increasingly globalised.
What do you look for in a partner and creative collaborator? What values do you appreciate?
Hugo Mendoza: I think it’s about both wanting a long term partnership; building something that could just keep going. I feel like everything in this industry is very short term and kind of saturated, you know? From what I see, it’s like we want to build an ongoing partnership with everyone that we work with. We don’t want to do one-offs where that’s it. We want to keep it going.
Angelo Baque: Individuality. Having a point of view. Coming from my generation, I think it’s really easy to fall back on certain attitudes like looking at younger generations and being super dismissive. With a wave of the hand just saying “they don’t know shit, they weren’t there”. I think that’s where a lot of my peers fall short. I’ve been looking for someone who I can bounce ideas off of for the past six years. To me, there’s no such thing as a bad idea, right? The only bad idea is the one that you don’t share. You don’t know when it’s gonna lead to the next idea. It might be a whack or a shitty idea in the beginning, but I might be able to take just a little bit of the root and then flip it. And then I throw it to him like, “Oh, what about this?” That’s very similar to the relationship that I had with James [Jebbia], my ex-boss over at Supreme. That’s where I was able to really succeed, to be the main sounding board and push ideas. That’s really important. With Hugo, he’s someone who isn’t afraid to say no or to disagree, but he also brings solutions. I’m a big solutions person. One of the main lessons I learned and first tests I got with James was he asked me to give him an analysis of Supreme as a brand in 2006. I had a laundry list of what I thought was whack. I was like, “This is whack, that’s whack.” And then immediately he was like, “So what would you do?” I had the answers ready. He was like, “You know, Angelo, a lot of people can say something’s whack, but a lot of people can’t come up with the answers, and that’s what I’m looking for. I’m looking for answers.” Any fool can say something’s corny or whack, but alright, how do you fix it? If you don’t like the color red, what’s better than red? If you don’t like nylon shorts, what’s better than nylon shorts?
So how do you define your roles at Awake now? Hugo, what will you be focusing on specifically?
Hugo: I think my role here is to bring the youth and really bring brand awareness to people. People who might have known about the brand, but aren’t caught up with what we’re doing now. Angelo’s been doing shit for what, six years?
Angelo: We launched in 2012, but it was really 2016 once I stepped down from Supreme. That’s when I went full throttle with the brand. Hugo’s a conduit for me. What I also appreciate is that he has one foot in the old and one foot in new, but he’s not my age. He understands the people from my demographic. And then there’s something that’s really pure and very New York about Hugo — something that feels missing from the city today. There’s only so much that I can do. I always joke with my friends and say I’m downtown retired [laughs]. I’m not on the streets the way I used to be back in ’06 when I started working for Supreme. It’s very mirror-like with Hugo. When people ask me about Hugo and our relationship, I compare it to what James did with me. It’s literally the same play. I was working at Nom de Guerre, and James called me up one day and was like, “Hey, I heard you’re not making any money. You want to make some?” And the rest is history. So same thing: I called Hugo and said I have this opportunity here, but it’s a little abstract. It took a few conversations for me to really figure out what that position looked like. But it was the same thing. I was like, “Do you wanna be the brand director at Awake?” And to echo what Hugo just said, he’s really helping us amplify the message of what we’re doing here.
How do you stay tapped into what’s happening with youth culture as you get older?
Hugo: I think it’s just going out every night [laughs]. I always surround myself with younger people. I mean especially in this industry, people are just popping off younger and younger every year. When I was running the Stüssy store, I worked with a bunch of young-ass kids, and they would bring their friends around. At one point, I’d just look around and say, “Damn. I’m surrounded by a bunch of 22 year olds.” Which is not a bad thing. Now that I’m doing this thing at Awake, I can have my older friends pull up, the young kids pull up and it’s several different tiers and generations of heads, all these different people in one place. I think it’s about staying tapped in and putting yourself out there. Like, not being afraid to stay out until six in the morning with 23 year olds drinking beer on a fucking stoop on St. Marks or some shit, you know? [laughs]
Awake is obviously a New York brand created by New Yorkers, but I’m curious what it means to be a New York brand today as menswear becomes increasingly globalised.
Angelo: I think it is really about the essence of the brand. How we present, how we show up. I’m also not foolish enough to just limit ourselves and become a hyper-local brand. I think our messaging since day one has always been about giving back and being community-driven. And I think those kinds of brand pillars transcend globally. Wherever I go, the kids know what we’re about. It’s not just like, “We’re New York and we’re cool and we don’t really acknowledge the rest of the world.” We’re really proud of where we’re from and a lot of our story has been diluted in the last 20 years, and it’s a very specific story. There are other brands of course that claim they’re from New York or have origins in New York, but it’s not the Awake narrative. And that’s why we attract a certain kind of kid.
How are you guys feeling about the flagship store? There’s a line outside right now. How did you approach the actual look and feel of the physical space?
Angelo: I wanted the store to have soul. I wanted it to have character. I want everywhere you look to have some kind of talking point. I want it to be the opposite of what’s happening right now in the retail landscape downtown. I’ll say this: if you really pay attention, there’s nods and notes from almost every place that I worked at as a kid. So there’s a bit of Nom de Guerre there, a little bit of Stüssy there, a little bit of Canal Jean Company, and obviously Supreme because I was there for so long. It’s also a love letter to downtown New York. Those are all the shops that shaped me and influenced me as a kid, and really pushed me to leave the block and get on the A train. I think one of the best compliments I got last night during the opening is that the photos don’t do the store justice and that you gotta come to the source to really experience it.
Hugo: We wanted to create a place for people to just come and hang and not really feel like they need to shop. Obviously it’s a retail store, but the way we want to approach it is as a hub for everyone. Like the kid who’s coming from the Bronx and he’s never been to the Lower East Side. Maybe he’s walking down Orchard and is like, “Oh shit, what’s this?” You know, he’s into art, he sees the artwork on the windows, and he walks in and he’s like, “Oh fuck, they’ve got a matcha bar, too?” You can sit down, drink some coffee, have some matcha. It’s really more like a hub rather than a retail space. And that’s how we want to approach it — for people to come and hang, meet new people, and just really feel welcome.
You guys do a ton of community outreach. Do you plan to expand that type of work through the store? There’s also a grant program that Awake does, right?
Angelo: Through our UPS collab, we started a scholarship fund at the High School of Fashion Industries for aspiring Latinx fashion designers to get them into whatever design school they choose. That program is continuing. My narrative is I’m an art school dropout. I couldn’t afford SVA, but I didn’t let that discourage me. So, I just think about the many versions of myself out there that don’t make it. Last week, the Virgil Abloh Foundation organized a big kind of think tank. It was me and 59 other people from Virgil’s creative circle. For me, the message that I kept trying to push was accessibility — accessibility to resources, whether it’s information or money or funding in order to bridge the gap for young POC creatives. But also, the point that I brought up while I was there is that I started looking at senior thesis shows to kind of scout young talent when I first started Awake. There was a lack of POC students at art schools like Pratt, SVA, FIT, etc. All of ’em, you know. So it was like, all right, we gotta start even before that to get these kids to art school in order for us to have a pool of POC talent four years from now, six years from now. You can’t just sit on your hands and wait for these serendipitous versions of myself or Hugo or Jermaine or Chris Gibbs or Shaniqua Jarvis to emerge. You gotta nurture that from the start. So, the first part is creating accessibility, right? And then making sure that the doors are always open. Awake has always been a platform — a creative outlet, a creative platform. And even working at Supreme, I always made it a point to try to push through POC creatives.
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What are you most excited about in Awake’s Spring 2023 collection?
Angelo: Gil Scott-Heron. I worked with his son Ramal to make it happen. He actually came to the opening yesterday and we met for the first time in person. He was hyped and actually got to see people purchasing the collab. I’ve been a Gil fan for like over 30 years now. He’s one of my favorite artists of all time. And this is one of the perks of owning a brand, you know what I mean? You get to work on cool projects like that. And then also being able to introduce a new generation of potential Gil Scott-Heron fans.
What about you, Hugo? Any favorites?
Hugo: Yeah, I like the Alvin Armstrong pieces. Prior to working here, I didn’t know who he was, so just seeing his paintings on the garments come out really dope was amazing. Plus, he painted two original portraits based off of this season’s lookbook, which are in the shop’s windows.
Will those be shifting out season to season, or is it a permanent installation?
Angelo: No, it’s not a permanent collection. I want to treat the two front windows as our own little gallery and just feature artists. And I also want to push the artists to use it as a real installation space. For me, that’s a nod to A-Life. Back in the day, I remember they had this dude ELF sleep in the window of A-Life, and that was his installation. He recreated his bedroom and slept in the window for like a week straight or something. Once again, all these things have always stayed in my memory; I knew when I got my own space, this is what I wanted to do with it.
Where do you guys think you fill in each other’s white spots? In terms of skill sets, creative sensibilities, where do you complement each other most?
Hugo: For me, this man is a walking library. He has years of experience in the field that I’ve been interested in since I was like 15-years-old. I also get to learn things that I didn’t know about the business. Prior to working here, it was very surface level. Now I’m in it, in the thick of it. So yeah, that to me is the most important.
Angelo: For me, it’s youth. Hugo has youth. He has energy, man. I feed off of that. It’s good and inspires me and pushes me. I’m very comfortable saying I don’t know. I feel like once you’re in my position, you can have this attitude of feeling like you know it all. But then you’re fucked. I have no problem humbling myself and asking, “Yo, what do you think?” I don’t think my opinion is the end all, be all.
What do you think makes Awake stand out or feel distinct within menswear in general? What’s its superpower or makes it inimitable?
Angelo: If you really pay attention to our design, we’re not trying to be anybody else but ourselves. We have a good problem where our cut-and-sew does well. I’m proud that we have a collection. I’m not trying to do a cut-and-sew collection hidden behind graphic T-shirts, you know what I mean? I feel like everything is well intended and you could be 15 or you could be 50 and you could wear Awake and not feel goofy. For example, the shirt that Hugo has on… you can pull that out 10 years from now and still feel good about it. That’s something I always take into consideration with design: “Can I wear that five years from now?”
Hugo: I think Awake is authentic and it’s surrounded by a very genuine community. It’s not a bunch of fake people who are just trying to cash a clout check real quick. That’s just what it is, and I feel comfortable saying that there’s no other brand in New York that feels that way right now. Everything is very bleak. Everything feels very transactional and very fake. So I think the authenticity of the brand is its own superpower. We can do whatever we want and no one will question it because they know we’re real. And now, with the store being open, it’s just gonna amplify and people are gonna feel the energy in real life. Yesterday’s opening was a testament to that. I’ve never been to a store opening like that before in my life. That’s just what it is, and that’s a superpower right there.
Credits
Photography Andrew Morales