Turning Up at Montreal

“We’re living in the Emo Age,” Edison Chen tells me, as our conversation leads us toward Drake lyrics, cracked iPhone screens, and trendy sadness. Chen has a knack for smashing ideas together on the fly. After a sex photo scandal exiled him from an acting and rap career in China, he relocated to Los Angeles and quickly recast himself as a streetwear entrepreneur. At home in this new role, Chen seems driven by world travel and a voracious appetite for street culture and contemporary art from every time zone. His Hong Kong-based brand CLOT feeds on this content-philia, spinning it off into exhibitions and clothes as well as collaborations with Cali Thornhill Dewitt, Perks and Mini, and Hood by Air. Yet for Chen, this mission is about more than just t-shirts.

For him, streetwear’s rapid collision of high-low-medium culture speaks to the digital age’s ability to foster creative unity on a global scale. He describes himself as a role model in a landscape dominated by JPEGs and hype. Thom Bettridge spoke with Edison Chen, who was photographed in Los Angeles in looks by Acne Studios and Raf Simons.