The name Horror Vacuo stems from the design concept ‘Horror Vacui’, or “fear of the empty.” Its modern iteration tiptoes around the merits of value perception. Keeping this in mind, every Horror Vacuo pop up or event follows a visual commentary or theme which revolves around the ideas and concepts of ‘value perception.’

For the event at FourTwoFour, spanning May 11-15, coined as “ULTRA SALE” (ウルトラセール), is a throwback to Horror Vacuo’s original source of inspiration: mid-2000’s Harajuku second-hand hole-in-the-wall shops. Although there is a clear premise that understatement and restraint in displaying merchandise increases the perceived value of said merchandise, Japanese stores—especially those a decade or older—disregard that notion completely. An average patron is absolutely bombarded with bold fonts and cheesy slogans. Clothing is stacked endlessly on top of each other. Stores are overcrowded and feel egregiously ‘commercial’ and vapid. However, to Japanese modern day collectors, like Okada and TWIY, this no man’s land served as a humble beginning.

“ULTRA SALE” is an attempt to capture, to some extent, the experience of second-hand stores from simpler times in Japan with all of its bells and whistles, including the over encumbered racks, the over-appreciation of designer shopping bags, the terribly contrived half-english slogans, the poorly-configured mannequins and so on. This is all an effort to give the customer a very small slice of where all these now-highly sought-after garments originated; initially stores and spaces where all the embellishment was deemed nearly worthless, only to be bought by an individual with the complete, unadulterated, uninfluenced purity of simply being partial towards the product. Simply put, at the aforementioned avenues, a person bought something purely because...well, he/she just liked it.

Ako Okada and his team “The World is Yours” established the largest fashion archive store in Osaka, Japan earlier this year after collecting for nearly two decades. As a follow up to last year’s pop up with Horror Vacuo, Okada will exclusively showcase a part of his collection to American audiences at the event.

A personal addition from Horror Vacuo is directing, filming, producing and styling a mock karaoke stock footage music video featuring an authentic karaoke cover of Joy Division’s “New Dawn Fades” with lyrics in Japanese and English. This will be playing on a screen for the duration of the event at FourTwoFour.

The items available today for purchase are a small fraction of pieces that have been hand selected by the team, pulled from the event and made available on Grailed. Horror Vacuo’s curation attempts to be diverse; although it’s undeniable that there is a target audience in regards to its curation habits, an item or two targets the unlikely customer—not unlike those passing through those aforementioned Harajuku shops. Furthermore, take time to explore the extensive detailed descriptions, available both an item’s listing page in and on Horror Vacuo's Instagram. Take a look at the listings below, and make sure to visit the event at FourTwoFour if you’re in Los Angeles this weekend.

Photographer: Kel Saborouh

Videographer: Kel Saborouh, Isaac Garza

Product Photography: Kel Saborouh, Isaac Garza

Styling: Kel Saborouh, Miyabi Miki, Isaac Garza, Jonah P.M

Modeling: Johnson Nguyen, Dustin Kempt, Ako Okada