New York, NY
Kommerce is presenting a new editorial-style brand narrative centered on founder and creative director COCO, whose personal history ties together New York skate culture, graffiti, and a long-running study of Japanese Streetwear.
According to the brand, COCO’s earliest creative identity was shaped in New York City, where feeling like an outsider led him toward skateboarding and graffiti culture. In the Kommerce telling, that path began with “ollies and kick flips” and eventually expanded into sketchbooks, spray paint, and a deeper relationship with visual self-expression.
That transition also became the starting point for a broader fascination with streetwear. In the founder’s account, one early turning point came through a gifted 10.Deep jacket and The Hundreds shirt, which changed how he thought about clothing, self-presentation, and the role style can play in community and identity.
“What started off as ollies and kick flips led me to spray paint and sketchbooks,” said COCO, founder and creative director of Kommerce. “My intro into the world was with a 10 Deep jacket and a Hundreds shirt that a friend gave me because, in his words, ‘I couldn’t be out here riding around in a Hanes tee.’ Little did I know at the time he was right. I fell in love with the way it made me feel and the things it brought me.”
The company says that early exposure to New York street culture eventually pushed the founder beyond domestic labels and toward Japanese fashion. Over time, Kommerce says COCO became increasingly focused on the clothing, storytelling, and construction standards of Japanese brands, studying both the garments themselves and the craft ethos behind them.
That shift reflects a larger place Japanese street fashion has held in global style history. Public fashion coverage has long pointed to Japanese streetwear as one of the most influential youth-fashion ecosystems in the world, especially through the development of Harajuku, Ura-Harajuku, and the graphic and silhouette experimentation that followed in the 1990s and 2000s.
“I went beyond them and turned my eye toward the east and fell in love with the Japanese brands, their clothes, their stories, and their dedication to their craft,” COCO said. “That led me to want to be my own designer.”
Kommerce says the founder’s first experiments were modest and hands-on: printed tees, customized jeans with patches, and jackets painted by hand. Those early one-off pieces, the company says, became a practical design education and an informal way to test whether a personal visual language could resonate with other people.
“It started with a few tees I printed, a couple of jeans I’d add patches to, or a jacket I’d paint on,” COCO said. “Once people started asking, ‘Where’d you get that from?’ and I made that first sale, it clicked that I could do this for the rest of my life.”
The brand positions that moment as the first clear sign that Kommerce could become more than a side practice. But the founder also describes a longer interruption between that realization and the present, citing work, bills, and the demands of adult life as forces that temporarily redirected his attention.
“Life, bills, and everything in between swept me up and I deviated,” COCO said. “But I silently kept creating. Now I’m here to chase my dreams.”
Kommerce says that history now informs the label’s design perspective: a mix of New York graffiti energy, skate-adjacent Americana, and references to Japanese Streetwear, filtered through a personal archive of 90s Fashion and early-2000s cultural memory. The company notes that COCO still draws inspiration from the 1990s and early 2000s looks he saw as a kid, and from the visual atmosphere of the neighborhoods and subcultures that shaped him. In that framework, a garment such as a graffiti zip hoodie is treated less as merchandise than as a continuation of notebook sketches, patched denim, and hand-painted outerwear.
Rather than presenting the brand as a trend response, Kommerce describes its current direction as the continuation of a longer process: a founder’s move from outsider to observer, from observer to maker, and from maker to creative director. The company says that ongoing thread remains visible across its graphics, silhouettes, and broader interest in the histories of fashion, graffiti, and youth culture.
About Kommerce
Kommerce is a New York-based brand whose visual identity draws on graffiti, skate culture, Americana, and Japanese streetwear research. The label’s work is informed by the founder’s long-term interest in design, customization, and youth-culture history.
Last modified: March 24, 2026
