Between shirts featuring paragraph-long manifestos up for sale alongside flowerpots and blackened Beep cards, Nobody isn’t your run-of-the-mill clothing company.

It was a Tuesday night when we spoke to the 4 co-owners – Fin, Kyle, Lari, and Zei – all of whom preferred to withhold their last names for this story and to not pose for a photo. They are, after all, “nobodies,” they said, and it would be pretty awkward to suddenly become “somebody.”

But now, on their second year (or shall we say “terrible twos?”), they’ve already made a name for themselves and are on the road to more.

4/20

The group claims April 20 as their official “birthday,” a “random date” that they chose in 2016; but Fin and Zei had actually been working together since late 2015. Fin is a designer and Zei works on producing the physical items for Nobody. Kyle joined in to help them out with marketing.

“Kung si Fin ang soul [ng Nobody, si Zei] ang heart,” Kyle said about Zei, who was quiet throughout our conversation.

“Kasi without Zei, lahat ng crazy ideas namin hindi namin ma-eexecute. Like, siya yung [dahilan] na hindi kami naka-confine to the box of what a clothing company would be. Marami kaming ideas na ‘Pare, gawa tayo ng ganito, gawa tayo ng ganito,’ and kung wala si Zei, ‘di man lang namin maiisip na possible gawin.”

(If Fin is the soul [of Nobody, Zei] is the heart. Because without Zei, we wouldn’t be able to execute all our crazy ideas. Like, he’s the [reason] why we’re not confined to what a clothing company would be. We have so many ideas, like ‘Pare, let’s do this, let’s make this,’ and without Zei, we wouldn’t even think they’d be possible.)

After a few collections, they partnered with Lari for “Science Project IV: All Roads Lead Home” towards the end of 2017. They found in each other the same passion for the brand and and what they stood for.

For Lari, a designer by profession, Nobody is a space where she and Fin can be their own bosses: “Outside, it’s just different because from 9 to 5 we get told what to do or there are certain expectations or we go into a project with someone else’s expectations setting the bar, but for Nobody it’s just it’s our expectations that we want to meet. But sometimes it’s a bit harder [to meet them].”

Nobody

Anybody who knows Nobody would know that the brand wouldn’t be complete without their manifestos, printed in blocks of text on their shirts.

Each collection starts with an idea, a story, said Fin, and without a manifesto, they wouldn’t be able to produce anything else.

Nobody represents the people like them who are “behind the scenes,” said Fin, and their first manifesto posted on Instagram says as much:

“There is a quiet place where passion exists just as intensely as it does in the midst of all the noise, and that’s usually where we go… It’s not a hideaway. There is nothing to hide from. We’re no different, and we’re no rebels. But this place – it allows us the freedom to impress no one, to stand on a platform and remain unseen. Life unfolds around us, but our existence happens elsewhere. We wear our passion quietly amidst the constant buzz.”

The stories they’re inspired by are always their own experiences or from their own readings (Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, among others), but as people behind the scenes themselves, the team behind Nobody prefers to let their work shine.

“I feel like the work is more genuine when you can separate the artist from it and the work will still be excellent,” said Lari, adding that as an artist, she’s afraid she may be in an echo chamber.

“For Nobody, we want people to think it’s excellent and good regardless of who we are.”

After they come up with a story and manifesto, they figure out how to get their message across through shirts, jackets, flower pots, umbrellas, Beep cards – whatever else they could possibly think of – blending philosophy and art seamlessly with the daily grind.

‘Let it fvcking grow’

“Grow roots just so the few who care will know where to find you, at least for now. Home in the middle of nowhere, a nobody in the vast universe,” the brand said, in their first collection with Lari.

Today, the team is doing just that, setting up a pop-up at the THE store in Cubao Ex, where it all began. Even their models – like Carla Crespo and Doy Nuevo – who were there from the start, grew with them and wear their merch to this day. Nobody set to move out of the THE store by the end of April, and they’re hoping to open their own space in Cubao Ex too, but that’s still in the works.

With more than 10 collections and collaborations behind them (they’re worked with their idols, the aforementioned THE, along with KLTRD and MAFK, among others) the Nobody team is hoping to collaborate with artist Auggie Fontanilla and the team behind the Philippine micro-satellite Diwata-1.

“We saw their pictures… and their jackets need work,” Lari said as everyone chuckled. “Sorry.”

“Yun yung dream namin kasi parang nobodies din sila, kasi isipin mo Pilipinas ‘to tapos meron tayong parang space program (That’s our dream because it’s like they’re nobodies too, because if you think about it, this is the Philippines and we have a space program),” Fin explained. It would be cool, they said, if Nobody could be the medium through which the Department of Science and Technology raised awareness about our micro-satellite program.

“It’s like while everything is going to shit, we have a space program, and that’s kind of fucking amazing. It’s mind-boggling… it’s a bit baffling that it wasn’t a big deal. It really wasn’t. I dunno, to us it’s a big deal, and we want to let them know that it’s a big deal to us,” Lari continued later, in a mix of English and Filipino.

We wouldn’t write off their dreams of space as impossible – after all, they’ve come a long way for being just a bunch of Nobodies. – Rappler.com

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