Nana: Fashion has infinite possibilities, and new power is born from it. As a carrier of culture and times, fashion encompasses everything. From trendy to traditional culture, from celebrities, idols to everyone’s daily life, and from West to East, it is our discourse, our power, our time. Through Asian Voice, we hope to spread the local Asian fashion culture to the world by moving cross languages and borders.
In this issue of ASIAN VOICE, we welcome Wall of Sound, a streetwear brand from Taiwan. Founded by Zihjini, Terry, and Eric, Wall of Sound emerged from a shared passion for streetwear and a love for music. As fate would have it, their journey began at a crowded table, where discussions about creating their own brand coincided with the serenade of their favorite post-rock tunes on the radio. Recognizing the power of music to unite people across cultures and languages, they embraced it as the central concept behind their brand. Wall of Sound aspires to be a streetwear label that embodies the same harmony found in music, presenting their unique language and multiple interpretations through their designs.
While their backgrounds did not lie in fashion design, Zihjini, Terry, and Eric possessed a knack for graphic design. This artistic strength became a defining feature of Wall of Sound, as their bold and distinctive graphics caught the eye of many. In their latest iteration, the brand embraces a rebellious styling, appealing to the “bad boyz” who roam the streets with a fearless attitude.
Throughout the creation process, Wall of Sound drew inspiration from the cultural realms of rock and punk. Despite their clothing leaning towards street fashion, their search for musical elements persisted. From lyrics to melodies, the essence of music consistently fuels their creativity, resulting in a collection that seamlessly blends the worlds of fashion and melody.
Nana: Can you tell us about the origin and inspiration behind your brand and its connection to music?
Zihjini: Wall of Sound was founded by Zihjini, Terry, and Eric. It all started at a crowded table with the passion for streetwear, we three were discussing making our own brand, and the radio just played shuffling to our favorite post-rock songs, so the three of us decided to use music as our concept of the brand.
We wish that Wall of Sound is a streetwear brand that has the same cohesion as music. Just like music can unite people across cultures and languages, we also regard it as our core spirit, presenting in our own language to build a brand that can be defined in multiple ways.
We were not majoring in fashion design, but we are good at graphic design, the strong styling graphics are now a recognizable feature of Wall of Sound. The latest version of Wall of Sound is willing to present a more rebelling styling for the bad boyz on the streets.
Nana: What is the inspirations behind the brand name, “Wall of Sound”?
Zihjini: Wall of Sound is a famous music performance technique, and we were inspired by
the post-rock we were listening to.
Recommend a post-rock band we like very much: pg.lost
Nana: How does the brand incorporate music influences into its designs and aesthetic?
Zihjini: Looking back through the creation process of Wall of Sound, most of our inspirations came from the cultural background of rock and punk, although the clothes we made are more of a street styling, we still will searching for elements from music, even lyrics or melodies could be the inspiration for our creation.
In 2021, we released a collection with Taiwanese brand Melsign based on the inspiration of the classic Britpop band – Oasis. We are used to creating a form of clothing that anyone can easily pull off with the use of not overly explicit musical elements.
Nana: How do you come up with the collections?
Zihjini: As everyone can easily receive information from the internet, we don’t do seasonal collections but sudden product releases, which makes us more flexible and unique.
Nana: Is it possible for you to share a little bit about the next collection?
Zihjini: The 23SS collection will further magnify the graphic design which we are good at, and will blend in more sports and urban styling into the creation, so stay tuned.
Nana: How does the brand engage with its customers and the fashion community?
Zihjini: Instagram is now our main platform where we can interact with our customers, we don’t do too much on promotions, but to feel our vibes when people first visit our account.
Here is an interesting example: we built a theme game on our website called “Mind Maze” at the beginning of the year, we’d like to let our customers know that we are unpredictable and filled with weird ideas, in order to increase the stickiness of Wall of Sound.
Nana: Can you share any upcoming projects or collaborations that the brand has in the works?
Zihjini: We have planned a lot of interesting collaborations this year, aiming at the different fields of cooperation, such as the project featuring MOON FACE DRAGON TEMPLE (Taipei cutting-edge tattoo store) we’ve done before, but it’s not fun to be a spoiler so stay tuned guys!
Nana:What is the biggest challenges during the process of building your brand?
Zihjini: It’s not hard to make things that we think are cool, but it’s hard to make people agree with our taste and even be willing to pay for our design. Although it sounds practical, but we can’t do this for fun if we are making this for a living, so combining commercials and our ideas is now our biggest and most demanding challenge.
We are unpredictable and filled with weird ideas.
