JULIUS

Julius is a Japanese brand that was founded in 2001 by Tatsuro Horikawa. “Born on Kyushu—an isolated island in southwest Japan. In the early 1970s, Horikawa emigrated to Tokyo at a young age, where he quickly grew to embrace the “pop feeling,” courtesy of the underground movements. He describes his childhood growing up in Neo-Tokyo as a future-wasteland, which “exists in [his] consciousness and in the consciousness of whole generations who saw Akira, Blade Runner, and Mad Max.” Horikawa defines underground Tokyo by incorporating techno and industrial music, a movement with which he identifies with.

During his early twenties, Horikawa became a video jockey, creating intense visual art projections that played alongside DJ sets in nightclubs.”
By 1996 Horikawa branched into clothing as he started his first brand, NUKE, which mostly consisted of graphic t-shirts and art based on Genma Taisen, an anime he was keen on. Looking back, NUKE was Horikawa’s time to progress as a designer and develop his ideas into what JULIUS was to become. As NUKE started forming into Horikawa’s own, he moved on to start JULIUS in 2001.

His new idea, Julius, was just an extension of NUKE with more of a focus on audio and visual displays. He wanted to mix the passions of his past with his new passion for clothing. In the first three years of Julius, Horikawa worked with other designers and got a feel for what he wanted his brand to evolve into eventually. For Julius, the natural progression was Horikawa’s goal.

Written By Alex Sturla