What's money?

I'm a firm believer of the adage that "money can't buy taste." In the consumerism culture we live in nowadays, there are a bevy of celebrities (classify wealthy people as well) who have money at their spending will and it's quite sad to see what they spend their money on given the ability to buy seemingly anything.

A person that can kind of be sorted into this group that I've been fascinated with is Nigo (Tomoaki Nagao), founder of Japanese urban clothing brand A Bathing Ape, the second biggest independent brand in all of Japan. Now, to tell you the truth, the clothing his brand produces aren't exactly my cup of tea but it is more so his lifestyle that accompanies the brand that has become a marvelous depiction of envy and awe. Because of this, the empire that Nigo has built has created a subculture of consumerism that has fans, including hip-hop heavyweights Pharrell Williams and Kanye West, fanatical over.

His lifestyle is a work of legend. He lives in a 5-story mansion (I'm sure it's not his only house) that boasts cars that you can't even dream of and a collection of invaluable collectibles that would make any auction envious. Going back to the point of money not being able to buy taste, it is this image that Nigo is perpetuating but solely off his interests. He has set the bar for this image. In an interview he did with Nylon magazine, he says, "I don't ever want to do something because it makes business sense. I just want to do the things I want to do, and then hopefully they'll turn out to be successful. The crucial thing to understand about me is that the only value that money has for me is what I can do with it. I'm a collector--I just think about what I can buy, what things I can get. For me, getting new things inspires me to think of something else to do. There's a lot of value in the stuff I have...but I'm not interesting in accumulating money, at all." Here's just a list of the things he has:

- 1 of only 2 metal-topped Jean Prouv