Meet SCAPES, The Label Shaking Up Women’s Streetwear

SCAPES is a Brooklyn-based streetwear label that’s coming for the typically male-dominated market. Created by designers Andie Enomoto and Taylor Kaclik, the brand first formed when the two were just students attending the BFA Fashion program at Parsons The New School for Design in 2015, choosing to create a collaborative project for their theses.

“I felt that my education was cultivating messages of fetishized individual success and the singular creative genius, but working together really helped me diverge from that ideology. The process of building such a meaningful partnership really exposed me to the potential of what sharing ideas, curbing your ego, and compromise could create,” says Enomoto. Upon graduating, select pieces from the joint thesis were picked up by a retailer—and, from there, SCAPES was officially born.

The brand evokes the subtle, gritty nuances of NYC, and it’s looking to disrupt the male-centric market that is streetwear. “The vision for the brand is rooted in eliminating the idea of ‘borrowing from the boys,’ by nurturing a culture specifically designed for women by women,” the two designers tell me. Pieces draw influence from the graphic elements of construction sites, signage on streets and storefronts, and local skate culture. “While walking around the city, we constantly point things out to each other—reflective tape wrapped around scaffolding poles, signs that are spliced together, or plants growing through cracks in the sidewalk. Our goal is to emphasize these small details that often go unnoticed but, to us, are so signature to NYC," says Kaclik. “We really absorb our surroundings, so our influences are often found in our experience of day-to-day living here,” Enomoto adds.

The result? Matching denim pant and jacket sets with close attention to stitching and details, origami-cut printed skirts, patchwork tees, and more.

With a recent rebrand under its belt, the young label is more ready than ever to shake up the streetwear industry. “We’re really focusing on bridging women’s ready-to-wear and streetwear. We want to showcase mobility across the fashion spectrum and allow our customer to shop highs and lows through SCAPES. Women’s collections in major streetwear brands either don’t exist or are created as an extension of something originally created for men,” says Enomoto. “SCAPES doesn’t style menswear on women and call it a womenswear collection. Our pieces take a woman into account—we want to construct something that’s really centered around women and is also designed by women,” adds Kaclik.

Who is the SCAPES woman? “I think our woman definitely has a certain confidence. I imagine her with an infectious personality, one that’s immersive and warm. She has a solid crew of powerful female friends, who all share a similar likeness—actively engaged, a little rebellious, and endlessly curious,” says Kaclik.

SCAPES serves to break the rules—and break away from the traditional norms of the fashion calendar. You’ll often find labels—both emerging and established NYFW regulars—complain of the grueling timeline that comes with the traditional wholesale/retail business model. But while SCAPES may have started this way, the two designers soon felt that this model didn’t fit with the quality they felt their girl deserved. And so, they switched into a direct-to-consumer brand.

“Delivering a high-quality product is something we take a lot of pride in, but, as a small business, it’s extremely difficult to execute while working within the wholesale-to-retail timeline. Our process is very hands-on; we still draft our own patterns, conduct all of our own fittings, and sew our samples in studio. The design process is so personal, and then you’re thrust into this production frenzy in order to meet each store's delivery date,” explains Enomoto. “Instead of working on the industry calendar and putting out a collection every six months, we’re planning to release curated drops more frequently throughout the year.”

Which means, when they do drop new items, they’re actually weather-appropriate. “We find that this keeps the customer more engaged and allows us to release product when it’s actually relevant to the season,” says Kaclik. “Delivering spring/summer collections in February, when it’s still negative 10 degrees outside, just never made sense to me.”

What’s next for the brand? With the recent launch of accessories, the two are hoping to transform SCAPES into a full-on lifestyle brand. We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for a product release this summer.

Head on over to SCAPESNY.com to shop the full offering and take a closer look at the current collection below.