The Wednesday Club is Geek & Sundry’s weekly talk show chatting about all things comics. “All things” includes comics-inspired fashion, so this week, hosts Amy Dallen, Matt Key, and Taliesin Jaffe were joined by Hero Within‘s Tony B. Kim to talk clothes inspired by beloved superheroes.
Tony is the creator, designer, and owner of Hero Within, an officially licensed, superhero-themed clothing line that focuses on fine embroidered details and subtle homages to all your favorite heroes. The company’s outerwear is particularly stunning, from Avengers bomber jackets to clean, fitted blazers with Batman or Superman hidden inside.
Tony has been a comic book fan since childhood. Often feeling like an outsider himself as a son of Korean immigrants in the U.S., he strongly identified with Superman and his own “ultimate immigrant” story.
“[DC Comics and Superman] really helped shaped me as a kid and still today,” he said.
“I feel like you’ve created the kind of suits that Clark [Kent] could wear to the office that have secret Kryptonian stuff inside,” Amy told Tony, “so that he would just know that he had both [worlds]. You have secret identity clothes.”
“I always feel like we shouldn’t have ‘work life’ and ‘real life,'” he replied. “There shouldn’t be a ‘day job’ and ‘night [persona]’. So one of our core values at Hero Within is this idea that [the two] are integrated, this idea that our fandom and our whole lives should be integrated together. We should be able to express ourselves in a way that’s honest and a part of ourselves, [where] I don’t have a ‘fan closet’ and a ‘work closet.’ It should be the same thing.”
Tony himself rocked the Wonder Woman denim jacket with delicate stitching of Diana’s recognizable symbol on this episode. He also believes that fandom clothes can go beyond T-shirts and hoodies, illustrated beautifully by pieces like the Avengers bomber jacket that kicked off the first ever Wednesday Club fashion show, modeled by Erika Ishii.
Other pieces that appeared on The Wednesday Club runway included:
- Avengers Assemble jacket
- Guardians of the Galaxy retro jacket
- Black Panther dress (with pockets)
- Black Widow crop hoodie
- Black Panther car coat
- Thor wool knit puffer jacket
- Captain America military jacket
Do you have a favorite comics-themed fashion company or piece? Tell us about it in the comments?
THE DAILY WEDNESDAY
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Featured Image: Geek & Sundry
Other Images: Hero Within and Geek & Sundry
