Arstist, Designer and Rapper

My first touchpoints with Upper Class was during the 90ies, when the HipHop culture was rising in Zurich. As a rapper I was more evolving in the musical direction but of course the culture and people were closely linked into break dance and graffiti too. So I was hanging out with guys like Zombie and Lord , one of the founding members of the Upper Class graffiti crew (today the regular fit of UC is named after him – comment Upper Class).

During that time I met Afshin and we were hanging out together – at the beginning more connected through the music but already at that time , Afshin shared his passion for denim and his vision about his Upper Class Jeans project. And over the time he showed me his designs, collections and ideas. Already then I was impressed by the attention to detailing.

In 2013 joined Afshin visiting the Bread & Butter tradeshow in Berlin and got the “ final deep dive” into the denim world. For that occasion, I had bought my first raw denim (from Upper Class of course) in December 2012, that I wore and took care of over several years- until it looked as it looks today (laughing).

Since then I am almost exclusively wearing Upper Class jeans and am proud owner of 7 upper class jeans reflecting each one different stages of my life and of course a nice variety of fading from heavy used to almost virgin looks. But 5 of them you could call as “extremely used” and I am looking forward to sharing all their specific fading with the Upper Class fan community here in the future too.

I did not pay any specific attention to jeans before,  but hanging around with Afshin over the past years , when we were visiting several other denim trade events and even sharing an atelier for a while , changed my perspective on jeans completely and the more I got into it, the more I recognise the passion for quality denim and level of detailing of the Upper Class Jeans.
And I can say that my connection with Upper Class is beyond the details and quality only…. Upper Class has become my “Metzger des Vertrauens” (“Butcher of trust” comment Upper Class)  – long and loud laughing

If you are up for the task, check out Zimok S3 Kuroki Japanase Selvage at the online shop, and please let us know how you go. We love a great break-in story and would love to hear from you.