LETTER FROM THE CEO

Hello everyone!

This is River, the CEO. I just wanted to personally thank you for checking out Vapor95 and becoming a part of our family.

Here is a little message from me about why I started the company and our future at Vapor95:

Almost four years ago, I started this company from my bedroom. Now, it’s expanded into something I could never have imagined. I will be eternally grateful for this. My gratitude really stems from two things. The first is Vaporwave itself, as a thought movement and as a philosophy.

When I first discovered Vaporwave, I really felt like it was the truest expression of my self identity that I had yet to find. It was me, it was my generation, it was what I grew up with, it was my t a s t e. I loved the colors and the moods. The feeling it imbued in me. This deep longing and at the same time, a deep peace. A peace that the time and place did exist, not only in the recesses of my childhood memories but in the collective subconscious. And now, it was being expressed.

The surrealist flow of Floral Shoppe and the disjunctive attitudes of Blank Banshee. When I was a teen (sixth through eighth grades), I used to go to the Boys and Girls Club after school. It was the ‘90s. We would watch MTV in the “teenroom” where you had to be sixteen to enter.

I remember the Thong Song music video in detail. I also remember Dragon Ball Z was on at 5 PM on Toonami. I would force the other kids to watch it with me while they mocked me for liking cartoons. I played Metal Gear Solid on the PS1 with my cousins and I bought the strategy guide and delicately opened the secret section. I had a Green Day tape and black bucket hat that was my only connection to teenage life when I had to drive across the country with my mom for a summer. I spent late nights on AOL chat rooms and on AIM trying to get people to download Subseven so I could make their CD tray open. I had Beck's "Odelay" in a yellow shockproof CD player. I had JNCOs. I could go on and on.

Vaporwave hearkened to those times and made me recall a simpler life: my life as a kid growing up in the ‘90s and into the new millennium. When I first realized that this beautiful movement existed, that I was a part of it, and that there didn’t exist a centralized source to buy clothing in this style, I understood what I had to do. I realized that if I didn’t do it, then someone else would.

I realized that Vaporwave at its core, its essence, resonated deeply in our society. We missed the free, wild, early internet. We missed low resolution. We wanted to represent this identity through what we wore, naturally. I will have to admit that when I made Vapor95, I wasn’t in the best place, and looking back I’d say I was pretty depressed. I think this is another aspect of Vaporwave that attracted me. It soothed me.

Recently when I did a giveaway on Instagram, I asked people to comment what Vaporwave meant to them, and I think a majority of the answers were something akin to: It helped me with my anxiety and depression and The atmospheres and feelings it gives me make me feel better about life and my place in it.

I am also grateful for this.

The second thing that I am grateful for is all of you. Each of you reading this. I’m grateful that I was able to find my place in life. All of your support in so many different ways has made this dream possible.

I always worried that Vapor95 could be interpreted as a patronization of Vaporwave, a cheap way to profit off of the movement. I worried that the community would reject me, but the opposite has happened. The Vaporwave community as a whole has supported and loved our brand and company and allowed it to flourish and continue to grow. It's really through this growth that Vapor95 has been given the opportunity to expand and enrich the already vibrant Vaporwave community. This is really one of my main goals. To spread Vaporwave, the message of Vaporwave, the peace and unity of Vaporwave.

The amount of gushing and beautiful words I was told at both ElectroniCON festivals changed me. People cared about the company and we were like a family. I cried thinking about all the people that actually cared. Words really can't express how thankful I really am for this, for this opportunity, and responsibility.

When I made the company I really had one main goal in mind: to provide a reliable, quality, American-made and customer-oriented source for Vaporwave clothing online. Which, at the time, didn't exist. I wanted to make sure that everything Vapor95 did and made was quality and above board, nothing made overseas or cheaply. I wanted everyone that had an interaction with the company to feel positive, excited, and inspired, to be entirely satisfied with their purchase and wanting more.

Unfortunately due to the nature of reality, this has been a statistical impossibility and it pains me to think of the ways I have also made mistakes, but I know that I have learned from these mistakes and this allows me to continue to move us constantly and consistently in the right direction, and with the same aspirations I had when I first started it.

The future right now for Vapor95 is incredibly bright. Although the Coronavirus has delayed many of our ambitions plans, I know we will get through this over time.

There are so many places and directions I want to take the company and the fashion industry in general. I want to develop the future of clothing. I want to incorporate technology and the perfect aesthetic into a new form of artwork that will revolutionize what we wear as a whole.

I am so excited and honored to have you with me on this journey.

Long Live Vaporwave!

If you ever need anything at all or have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at River@Vapor95.com.

With Love,

River