Brain Dead clothing: a psychedelic twist on streetwear staples
Trying to describe the graphics on Brain Dead clothing can sometimes be a difficult task. The pieces can look like unintelligible AI-generated artwork at times and a fever dream at others, but they always catch the eye and leave an impression. That's the best thing about the brand –just how singular it is. This singularity is an extension of Brain Dead’s founders, Kyle Ng and Ed Davis, who started the brand in LA in 2014. In a conversation with Interview Magazine, Ng said“I knew I had a really strong sense of lifestyle, of who I am, and my interests and hobbies. What I felt strongly about was that that stuff, the brand itself, the clothing I make, was just merchandise for my life.”
Ng is someone who has experienced a lot of different subcultures, spending a lot of time skateboarding in his youth as well as exploring the punk scene and pursuing filmmaking in LA at 17. He brings this love of subculture to his brand’s aesthetic and embraces the alternative elements of those worlds. One of the first things that strikes people about the brand is the name, “Brain Dead.” It may seem silly, but like everything about the brand, it’s intentional. A lot of his inspirations and creative visions are high-brow, drawing from Ng’s experience with art, music, and cinema, but he wanted a name that sort of contradicted this on a surface level – so he chose Brain Dead. (Stipanovich)
The clothing itself embraces a lot of different inspirations and styles, with a look that can be described as a mashup of streetwear classics, outdoor wear, and psychedelic graphics. A majority of their clothes are pretty loud – a signature look – but they have well-made simple basics as well. However, only talking about the clothing they sell would be an injustice. Although Brain Dead focused solely on clothing in the beginning, as they gained recognition Ng and Davis have started branching out into all sorts of products. On their site you can find original cologne, dog leashes, water bottles, ceramic sculptures, rugs, totes, mugs, paintball accessories, a skateboard and skincare products.That’s not even the full list. Beyond that they have commissioned a series of odd but charming short films on Youtube that feature different animators and styles.This again is a direct representation of the founders’ multifaceted interests.
This variety of inspirations manifests beyond the actual products as well. Brain Dead attempts to create a community, and not in the way that many brands use the phrase – they physically try to create community. At their store in Fairfax, they host movie nights, have opened a cafe, play the tabletop card game Magic the Gathering and pursue philanthropic endeavors. They donated $500,000 to Black Lives Matter in 2020. In response to the closing of a local Dickies store which provided affordable, durable clothing, the brand opened a Dickies x Brain Dead pop-up shop with more affordable, but still fashionable clothing. They also like to try to create a community within the fashion industry with a ton of collabs from the tennis brand Prince, the rock climber Ashima Shiraishi, Them Skates, The North Face, and Reebok to name a few.