Enough rambling, here’s the juicy deets on what’s in progress right now.
New sticker packs
You may have already seen our latest sticker pack drops on Instagram or via our Kakuto Kazoku emails, if you haven’t, where have you been man?! The MASKS + PEONIES sticker pack has become a favourite of customers already. It was designed to support the style of the new ‘Warrior in a garden’ rashie consisting of three Japanese masks (Tengu, Hanya and Kitsune) and three peonies (framed peony, peony in a jar and peony fan).
The second sticker pack released under Kakuto Studios is the ENOKI CLAN sticker pack and I have to say, this one is my personal favourite to date. Alex took inspiration from our love of mushroom and Chibi art. These cute original characters are martial arts masters and although formidable, they’re darn adorable. Since Kakuto Studios was built as a creative outlet for Alex to stretch his creative legs, not limited to martial arts influenced pieces it will be mostly Japanese style art (unless Alex has a hankering to produce something different) so you can expect more pieces like this to drop in the year to come.
New Rashie drop
Alright, we know what you follow our brand for. It’s probably grappling gear like rash guards and finger tape. So we have good news, no, great news actually. 2024 will have more rash guard drops than we’ve ever produced.
Since dreaming up and launching Kakuto Culture as Kakuto Grappling Culture waaaaaay back in 2020 (yes, Kakuto is a pandemic baby) we’ve only dropped one rashie - The Kitsune Rashie. One rashie? That’s it? Lame, I know. But we’re on a roll and have our long awaited second rashie in our hot little hands right now. As we speak, we’re QAing each piece to make sure it’s up to standard and once that’s done, we’ll have final numbers available for purchase. Kakuto Kazoku (Kazoku meaning family) email subscribers get first dibs on sizes since we’re doing a limited run of each rashie design moving forward.
The rash guard itself is named ‘Warrior in a garden’, inspired by the quote “It’s better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war” (facts) and also by the birth of our first daughter Amelia. Featuring an original framed peony back piece, customised Kakuto Culture Kamon (crest) with intertwining Sakura (cherry blossoms) chest piece, Kakuto Studios Kamon and project specific Peony Kamon on either arm, this black and white rashie is a head turner. It took us a while to agree on the main back piece design, although we knew it was always going to be a Peony, it was a question of which one.
Fun fact: Alex developed and subsequently dropped about four different designs across multiple months before landing on this one. Waiting until we fell in love with this piece was definitely worth the wait.
As usual, we’ve designed custom packaging for this rashie too. Our normal process for packaging design is for myself to come up with the concept and prototype, then Alex finesses it in the final design draw up and this project was no exception. Together, we teased out the finer details for the box, changed a few things from the prototype and Alex went on to make the final design sexy. Again, like with all Kakuto projects to date, Alex hand-printed the packaging which looks sick (if I do say so myself). Each rashie will be wrapped in a hand-printed and sewn wave belt which I am currently working to completed this week with any luck. Lastly, this project also includes a limited edition black and white peony sticker and Kakuto Studio Kamon sticker which only ‘Warrior in a garden’ rashie purchasers will receive.
Pre-order goes live for Kakuto Kazoku email subscribers on Thursday 11 January 2024 via email only, make sure you’re subscribed to grab your size before it’s gone. Pre-sale closes on Monday 15 January and then the stock left after pre-sale goes live to the general public from Tuesday 16 onwards.