Fashion and streetwear frontiers PAQ have rapidly worked their way up the ranks over the past few years. Their YouTube channel (which is part of KyraTV) boasts some 724k subscribers and their videos regularly amass over 1million views.
Spearheaded by Shaq, Danny, Elias and Dexter, their series (which is the most-watched men’s fashion show online) sees them dissecting all the latest trends and trying on the wares of their favourite designers. After spending much of recent seasons on the Front Row, it seemed like only a matter of time before the quartet would be releasing a collection of their own.
Their brand Ways of Seeing which launched earlier this month has dropped a selection of trendy tees, hoodies and tote bags equipped with PAQ seal-of-approval. Described by the boys as “a graphics-heavy streetwear brand where quality, culture and inclusivity is at its very core”, their first collection takes inspiration from antiquity, high art, impoverished and orphaned graphics with references from sculptural relics, French comics and late 60s electronic arts periodicals amongst others. Made in Portugal, the collection is formulated from organic cotton crafted in environmentally conscious factories.
“PAQ has always been a reflection of the community that we have built around the show. From meet-ups to pop-ups, we have witnessed strangers become friends bonding over their love of PAQ,” the brands Creative Director, Jordan Rason tells me. “We wanted to create a uniform, that when you see someone else wearing it, you know, they are part of the same community as you. Our audience is both discerning and fashion-conscious, and that is the reason we decided to create something that we feel is elevated above other ‘merch’ offerings.”
The collection launched with a unique pop-up where the PAQ boys invited 500 fans to get early access to the collection. It was an opportunity for their most significant supports to access a selection of one-off colourways, enjoy on-site personalised printing, as well as having the chance to meet the foursome.
“We have discussed the brand on-and-off for the past year, but it has started to take shape over the past four months,” Rason tells us. “We teamed up the artist Lucas Price to help develop the graphic identity of WOS, and after that, it was the team behind our PAQ episodes that made it happen. From sourcing the perfect cotton to finding a factory in Portugal, the team have been learning on the job to launch something that is really special to everyone involved.”
Echoing the sentiments of Rason, PAQ’s very own Danny Lomas explains: “Us four boys have such individual styles that trying to create something that would serve all of us in one go seemed impossible. What we came to realise is that PAQ has always been bigger than the four individuals on the show, it’s about the community that we have built around it. This was our way of giving something back to that community, a uniform for the PAQ fans”.
Ways of Seeing is available now at https://ways.kyra.com/
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