Black Scale: the Karl Lagerfeld of streetwear brands

visit: http://www.black-scale.com/

Birthing only a year and a half ago, Black Scale has grown exponentially since their start by their founder, Mega. Today the brand steadily grows, recently opening up their pop-store in San Francisco, expanding their product selections, holding over a hundred accounts worldwide, and collaborating with favored streetwear brands. This is only a fistful of recent accomplishments by Black Scale, and with the continuous hype of the brand recurrently gaining exposure and being featured in streetwear blogs, you definitely could expect that Black Scale will exist to become a household name in streetwear.

Unlike many, Black Scale isn’t your typical streetwear brand. They had no explosive streamline releases bundled with instant hype, collaborations, or products. They held no popping colorways or had massive availability for their apparel. They grew by existing against the grind by pushing to be limited and perpetuating a clean, simple taste. As streetwear pushes for its future by trying to level with high-fashion labels, Black Scale exerts itself to carry on this persona, yet perseveres in maintaining the essence of streetwear. Their standard of a black/white/gray color story and an edgy design aesthetic can easily make them the Karl Lagerfeld of streetwear brands.

Fathered by Michael Yabut, notoriously known as Mega, Black Scale consists of a team of four designers, Mega, Alfred De Tagle, Robert Garcia, and Alex Aquino. Taking inspiration from Egypt, freemasonry symbolism, religion, and government, their graphics revolve around these origins and posses an avant-garde delivery in design. These are tees that hit with thrill, mixed with style and sophistication and won’t go sour after one season, remaining as a classic wardrobe item. What’s unique about Black Scale’s design aesthetic is they are left open for interpretation. Laying a deeper meaning in each design, each shirt is made to be as significant to the next. Not fully releasing the meaning of their designs, they aim for their consumers to become encouraged on educating themselves to dig further on its meaning, whether literally or in self-translation. The yawning substance in their work travels further than the designs of their apparel, but are also present in their website/blog, pop-up store, and look books.

Though they maintain accounts worldwide, Black Scale strives to carry on as a limited edition brand, having talks about expanding directly into Europe and surpassing marketing in New York and L.A. They prevail in being finite by avoiding to mass-produce products as much as they began with a rangebound in their product assortments. However as the brand rapidly prospers, their product range grows as well with upcoming releases in sunglasses, shoes, hats, denim, varsity jackets, bicycles, as well as expanding their color stories. In the near future, Black Scale will feature week-after-week twelve collaborations done with folks such as Kingdom, Crooks & Castles, St. Alfred’s, Goorin Brothers, etc. The success of their experimental store, which will continue to hold its grounds until September, is making the look of opening a flagship store in San Francisco’s Union Square a reality. With the prospects of a flagship store, continuous build on the label including cut-and-sew garments, and limited collaborations, Black Scale will be keeping everyone on their toes for seasons to come.

Black Scale – pop-up store
1768 San Jose Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94112

(*Keep checking back for a feature on Black Scale’s pop-up store, and a closer look on their apparel, soon to come.)