Awake NY’s Angelo Baque on Community, Collaboration and His Roots

If you’re Australian, Awake NY is an apparel brand that may or may not be on your radar, depending on where you shop and which online communities you interact with. Locally, Awake NY is stocked in a select few in-the-know boutiques, such as Supply Store and Highs & Lows, and enjoys a loyal customer base amongst those of us who’ve grown up drawing cultural reference from New York City and the subcultures birthed by it.

Angelo Baque personifies a distinctive era of New York street culture (for lack of a better term). In the late ’90s and early 2000s, when subcultures were converging, many of today’s fashion icons—including Angelo—were cutting their teeth. Initially pursuing social studies with plans to become a teacher, a young Angelo interned at the legendary hip-hop magazine The Source before landing a role at The Fader, where Jeff Staple mentored him in design fundamentals. This experience paved the way for his 10-year tenure at Supreme, where he rose to Brand Director. Angelo surprised many when he left the prestigious role to focus on Awake NY, which he founded in 2012, and to launch his own creative agency, Baque Creative. Read more at Complex (Australia).