Alec Nakashima always had a passion for fashion. Growing up, he, his brother, Davis, and his cousins printed their own T-shirts and had liked creating their own clothes.
So it makes perfect sense that years later, Nakashima would create Akashi-Kama, a streetwear brand with designs clearly influenced by the Japanese aesthetic and blends his love for fashion with his Japanese background.
“I wanted something, like a physical thing or representation, of traditional aesthetic with modern, something we could wear day to day; taking cues from things that I saw in my grandparents’ closets growing up, but that would fit someone who grew up wearing Jordans,” Nakashima said.
Nakashima pinpoints the origins of Akashi-Kama to the homeland itself, having found inspiration while on a trip to Japan in 2018 with the Kakehashi Program. The program, coordinated by the Japanese American Citizens League and the Japan International Cooperation Center, sends young Japanese Americans on all-expense paid trips to Japan to foster relations between Japan and the United States through “mutual trust and understanding” and to “promote a global understanding” of Japanese society and history, according to the program’s website.
“I felt this when we went to Kakehashi, that I wasn’t ‘Japanese Japanese.’ It very much still feels like you’re in a foreign country, but yet, there are certain things that feel familiar,” Nakashima said. “[The trip] kind of pulls up random spots that you have, and it brings them closer together, which I think is really cool.”
The trip was Nakashima’s first time traveling to Japan, which he said contributed to the gravity of its impact on his perspective of culture and identity.
“I think it was a really strong one-two punch in terms of cultural impact for me,” Nakashima said. “I had been thinking, before the trip, about Japanese American identity and feeling kind of between two worlds growing up … ‘Am I fully Japanese? Am I fully American?,’ and not really understanding that I can be both.”
It is this duality, Nakashima said, that is “really the inspiration” behind what would eventually manifest itself in Akashi-Kama.
Officially launched in 2019, Akashi-Kama creates “Modern products designed and influenced by 日系人,” or nikkeijin, a Japanese word that refers to people who are Japanese by ethnicity that have emigrated to other countries. It’s a fitting word to describe the experience of many Asian Americans, who grow up with the challenge of distinguishing two separate cultures within themselves.
“There’s a certain imposter syndrome sometimes being Asian American. It’s like, ‘Am I really Asian enough? I know so many Asians who are more Asian than me,’” Nakashima said. “My hope is that our brand can kind of be something that is subtle, but still authentic in my experience as an American.”
The brand, which operates solely as an online retailer, has accumulated over 15,000 Instagram followers and ships their products internationally. Their Spring 22 collection, released March 11, sold out of multiple pieces within two weeks, and their Fall/Winter 2022 collection, which dropped Sept. 22, looks to follow a similar trend.
Akashi-Kama sells typical streetwear items like T-shirts, hoodies and sweaters, but prides itself on its “hero piece:” the Noragi jacket. Inspired by noragi, a type of historical Japanese workwear for field laborers, Akashi-Kama’s rendition consists of a unisex-style jacket in traditional Japanese colors, with tapered sleeves reminiscent of a modern American blazer.
“We’re blending a traditional Japanese piece with a little more modern twist,” said Nakashima’s brother, Davis, who contributes to the brand on the side of his regular job through modeling and creative design. “Being able to represent Japanese Americans and the complexity or identity of that into clothing has been so empowering.”
The Noragi jacket has put Akashi-Kama on the map, earning accolades from GQ and Valet Mag, but for Nakashima, the most meaningful feedback he’s received is that from the community in which the jacket was inspired by.
“We’ve gotten emails that are like, just a Japanese American person out in Illinois or something, who is like, ‘Wow, I didn’t even know I wanted this. This means a lot to me,’” Nakashima said. “That, to me, is as much validation as any publication, because that’s the perspective that I was designing it with.”
Yet, Akashi-Kama is in no way a company exclusively for Japanese American consumers. Their vision, as stated on their website, is “Inspired by Japanese-Americans. Created for Everyone.”
“I just love that our brand can hopefully mean the same to someone who’s Japanese American or Asian American and not. That’s the end goal, that our brand is [bridging] that gap.” Nakashima said. “Can I really wear something like this, or can I really come off as this, or do I deserve this? And the answer is yes.”