Over the last decade, athleisure trends inspired by streetwear have invariably made an appearance on the runways of Paris Fashion Week. Even in luxury boutiques on the main streets of cities, you’ll find graphic T-shirts, hoodies, and “hype” sneakers embellished with logos and monograms. The boom of luxury sportswear in the world of high fashion may very well have been a forerunner to today’s luxury watch market, which has heated up thanks to extremely expensive (and hard-to-obtain) sports watches.
But our intention here is not to discuss shifts in the luxury market, nor do we intend to predict future trends in the fashion and watch scenes. However, we think it’s important to talk about the first person who practiced the now-mainstream values of finding elegance in such tough and sporty products rather than dainty, delicate works of art, and transformed those values into his own creations. He emerged in Tokyo in the 1990s and continues to spread his philosophy to this day, and his influence has intensified with the changing times.
That person is Hiroshi Fujiwara, whose creations are sent out into the world under the banner of “fragment design.”
“Godfather of Streetwear”
Fujiwara is sometimes called the “Godfather of Streetwear” in the fashion scene (although he seems embarrassed by this moniker), but his creativity is not demonstrated in fashion alone. In fact, his music also played a pivotal role in his rise to fame.
Fujiwara began his career as a DJ with world-class skills in the Tokyo club scene at the dawn of the 1980s. He entered the 90s with his own unique fashion sense, as he understood the punk, hip-hop, and skateboard cultures and elevated them with high fashion and art. He was frequently featured in magazines and other media, gaining a large following. Back then, the clothes and shoes that Fujiwara showcased in the media sold out in the blink of an eye. As soon as they were released, these hard-to-obtain items were immediately traded at high prices on the secondary market – exactly the scene we see before us now.
As the 21st century began, his influence spread to other continents. For a generation that had been exposed to hip-hop and the Internet since birth and was far removed from bourgeois dress codes, Fujiwara’s style – casually wearing Hermès and Nike, and driving a Mercedes and riding a skateboard with the same gusto – became widely accepted as realistic and refreshing. Before long, creators and journalists in the world of style and high fashion came to recognize that Hiroshi Fujiwara was breaking new ground that would set the trend for the new generation of luxury styles. And it was with the highest degree of respect that he became known as the “Godfather of Streetwear.”
Hiroshi Fujiwara and His Relationship With Watches
As Fujiwara bases his creations on his own lifestyle and values, the creativity he shows as a designer goes beyond fashion pieces like clothes and sneakers. We could say that this is an example of the uniqueness Fujiwara offers as the creative force behind fragment design. In fact, Fujiwara’s portfolio includes cars and cruisers, so it’s no surprise that he can also count watches among his work. Indeed, Fujiwara demonstrates his knack for being ahead of the curve when it comes to watch aesthetics. His collections, which have been showcased in magazines and other media, have inspired many, including street brand designers who dominated the Ura-Harajuku fashion scene in Tokyo in the 1990s.
Fujiwara’s watches of choice were the “Red Sub” Submariner and the Daytona “Paul Newman,” Rolex Professional models from the 1960s and 70s that were already well respected in the 90s. Fujiwara’s act of wearing these watches as gadgets – a completely different dimension than collecting them – quickly embodied the street-generation elegance that is emblematic of the current fashion scene.
TAG Heuer Carrera Heuer 02 by Fragment Hiroshi Fujiwara
If you want to get a sense of Fujiwara’s style based on his watches, I think the Carrera Calibre Heuer 02 by fragment Hiroshi Fujiwara, a collaboration with TAG Heuer released in 2018, would be the most apt example. Taking the blueprint of the original model from 1962, Fujiwara embellished the timepiece with the retro mood and functional beauty of a vintage chronograph. The lightning bolt logo of fragment design at the 12 o’clock position on the dial is another striking detail.
Fujiwara’s collaboration with TAG Heuer continued with the TAG Heuer x Fragment Design Chronograph in 2020. This timepiece clings to the same concepts as his previous work, transforming them into a high-spec model with a sporty, mechanical aesthetic inspired by the heritage of TAG Heuer’s racing watches.
Various G-Shock Watches
Fujiwara doesn’t only produce high-end mechanical sports watches. As the embodiment of postmodern elegance that exists in a different dimension than the dress codes and status-based ideologies of past generations, it’s only natural that he would create an enticing presentation for his G-Shock watches.
Produced by Fujiwara, this G-Shock collaboration was sold exclusively at “the POOL aoyama,” a store operated from 2014 to 2016 on the site of an indoor pool in a vintage apartment building in Aoyama, Tokyo. Even now, just ten years later, the model is already a collector’s item. Three years ago, Fujiwara worked on an anniversary edition at mixed martial artist Kaoru “Caol” Uno’s store, USC. With its monochrome color pallet, the G-Shock is a beauty featuring Fujiwara’s clean pop flair.
Collaboration With Neighborhood
Going back now to 2003, Fujiwara created a watch with Neighborhood, a leading brand in Tokyo’s Ura-Harajuku street fashion movement that began in the 1990s. The model deeply reflects Fujiwara’s aesthetic vision for watches. Despite being a fashion-oriented watch equipped with a quartz movement, it combines a tough street style owing to its completely blacked out design combined with a nostalgic functional beauty inspired by sports watches of the 1960s and 70s. The leather strap is an homage to the crocodile strap that Paul Newman, Hollywood movie star and racing driver, wore his Daytona on during his races. This element was then carried over to the Carrera Calibre Heuer 02 by fragment Hiroshi Fujiwara mentioned above.
FRAGMENT×BVLGARI “BVLGARI BVLGARI”
The latest watch from fragment design is the FRAGMENT×BVLGARI “BVLGARI BVLGARI,” a collaboration with Bvlgari.
The first edition was released in 2020, and the 250 pieces sold out immediately. The second edition, which was unveiled in 2021, is based on the brand’s iconic “BVLGARI BVLGARI” watch. It has a minimalist black dial with no indices; the top and bottom of the bezel are engraved with “BVLGARI” and “FRGMT.” The combination of mirror-polished case and NATO strap expresses the contrast between nostalgia for the bright and bustling Tokyo of the 80s and the new-generation elegance that Fujiwara has spearheaded.
As we’ve seen, Hiroshi Fujiwara takes inspiration from top-of-the-line watches (not just those that are rare or have high market value) and spins them into new creations with his own aesthetics and philosophy. They have no eccentric decorative qualities, nor are they expressions of an excessive artistic ego.
What they do have is a love and respect for the idea that, although watches – no matter how complicated their mechanisms or delicate their decorations – are only really useful for telling the time and date, they nevertheless remain mysterious tools, capable of conveying a romantic illusion that captures our hearts and refuses to let go.
