In 2021, during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Atlanta-based game concept artist Jasmine James was trying to stay creative.
James, who runs the Instagram cosplay account Cutiepiesensei with over 500,000 followers, realized there wasn’t much practical, anime-inspired clothing in the market. Anime-inspired fashion, she told Business Insider, was largely restricted to huge men’s jackets or merchandise items that weren’t wearable on a daily basis.
So James and her husband spent more than $30,000 of their savings to launch Fira X Wear, a swimwear brand that blends cosplay elements with practical apparel.
Since its initial launch, the brand’s product range has expanded to include leisurewear. James left her game concept art job last year to focus on the brand full time.
Now, the Netflix of anime, streaming platform Crunchyroll, is collaborating with James to launch a clothing collection inspired by the “My Hero Academia” anime series. Crunchyroll has around 17 million subscribers globally, the platform told BI.
Fira X Wear’s first drop, which has been in the making for a year, includes four items: a cropped jacket, a romper, a sweatshirt, and a pair of sweatpants. Two more product drops will follow.
“Anime fans love to wear their fandom on their sleeve — literally,” Crunchyroll’s global vice president of consumer products, Anna Songco Adamian, told BI.
“Fira X Wear and this collaboration is the culmination of all of that: professional design, craftsmanship, and fandom, blended into a wearable collection,” Adamian said.
Running Fira X Wear
James was initially worried people wouldn’t consider her brand a “serious business,” given its pop-culture and cosplay-inspired roots. But she hopes that’ll change — and that people will see how commercially viable anime is.
“I feel like people think it’s kiddish or only a certain age group is into it, without realizing that a lot of us, especially people in my age group, grew up with anime,” James, 32, said.
James said she didn’t have a traditional fashion design background when she started her brand, apart from putting together her cosplay outfits.
But she had plenty of experience making skins — alternative outfits and designs — for characters in video games.
“I had to learn what colors and what silhouettes are visible from across the map. Because when you’re playing, you have to be able to know who it is and know what their abilities are,” James said.
“So it taught me just the importance of color and shape and how to kind of apply those things in interesting ways to real life,” she added.
She said having experience with character design allowed her to “create things that are a little bit more unique than the average fashion drop.”
When deciding on pricing, James said she wanted her brand to be premium but still affordable.
“When you initially go into anime or pop cultural merch, a lot of it can feel very cheap. On the other hand, you’ll see very expensive designer launches. But everybody can’t afford a $30,000 Gucci outfit to look like their favorite anime character,” James said.
Fira X Wear’s swimwear, including tops and bottoms, costs roughly $50 each, and the hoodies are around $110.
James hopes to expand her brand globally and design a collection of high-end pieces with more detailing.
“There are plenty of times where I’ll go into full character concept artist mode, and I’m clearly creating something that would be extremely expensive to produce,” James said.
For now, she’s excited about her collaboration with Crunchyroll.
“To have them look at what I’ve been doing on social media and look at my designs and instantly be like, yeah, we want to put our names alongside that, it’s a huge honor for me,” James said.
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