Episode interview with Chris Le, find his Twitter https://twitter.com/clegfx (@clegfx) and check out his new avatar project dropping soon https://clonex.rtfkt.com/ (CloneX) Time Stamps [0:33 – 1:11] Chris is the co-founder of Studio https://rtfkt.com/ (RTFKT) and soon dropping https://clonex.rtfkt.com/ (CloneX), a collaboration with https://www.instagram.com/takashipom/?hl=en (Takashi Murakami). [1:16 – 8:40] Chris has worked in all forms of entertainment some of the artists e has worked with include; https://andersonpaak.com/ (Anderson Paak), https://www.nasirjones.com/ (NAS), and https://www.instagram.com/richforever/?hl=en (Rick Ross). From music industry to film he has done it all but always with an emphasis in visual effects (CGI or VFX background) then moved into game skins. Chris developed a lot of skins for the https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=719928795 (Steam Workshop Platform). In his view skins are the same concept as NFTs.  He then had the idea to put these skins on sneakers and was introduced to https://twitter.com/benitopagotto?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor (Benito) through his friend https://brockhoferart.com/nzxt-h440-hyperbeast (Brock Hofer) (Hyperbeast). From there they teamed up with https://twitter.com/zaptio (Zaptio) to create a digital sneaker brand that could be forged for physicals. They got funded in 2019 by https://www.galaxyfundmanagement.com/ (Galaxy Digital) then later by https://www.galaxyfundmanagement.com/ (GFR Fund) and RTFKT launched in 2020. They returned to NFTs in late 2020 with their release of Cyber Sneaker on Superman. [8:40 – 11:35] For Kizu he sees a lot of overlap between Chris and Murakami’s background. Starting in fashion, then later moving into the hip-hop industry (Murakami’s colaborations: https://www.lvmh.com/group/lvmh-commitments/art-culture/ (LVMH), https://www.supremenewyork.com/ (Supreme), https://www.off---white.com/en-mx/ (Off-White), https://news.artnet.com/art-world/takashi-murakami-kanye-wests-kid-cudi-album-art-1298195 (Kanye West), https://artoyz.com/shop/en/blog/takashi-murakami-collaborates-with-jeweler-ben-baller--n878 (Ben Baller) & https://www.grailed.com/collaborations/drake-takashi-murakami (Drake)) Chris responds that he only works with people he is a fan of and that their backgrounds (Chris, Zapatio, Ben & Murakami) all aligned, almost as if it were meant to happen.  [11:57 – 13:04] The collaboration came about after the guys at RTFKT did an interview with Forbes Japan after which Murakami reached out with a DM of emojis. The rest is history. [13:04 – 18:09] Kizu sees Murakami, especially in recent years, as merging the two worlds between hypebeast and nerd culture. This is interesting as usually they are seen as being on the opposite sides of what is cool or fashionable.  For Chris, who has a love for gaming and otaku but also hip-hop culture, this highlights even more the synergy of why and how this collaboration came together. Chris says that him and Ben came into this because they wanted to make gaming cool.  [18:09 – 22:52] Kizu talks about the cultural shift between the need to look cool on and offline and how these worlds are merging.  For Chris who started as a nerdy PC gamer looking up to hip-hop culture, he says that he always knew that pop culture would eventually go in that direction how Clone X for him is bringing these worlds together. [22:52 – 27:43] Sabretooth notes that there are many PFP projects out right now in the NFT scene and asks Chris how they they came up with, https://clonex.rtfkt.com/ (CloneX). It all started when Ben and Chris started creating virtual influencers (https://www.tiktok.com/@fnmeka? (FN Meka)) with this background, plus a need to be able to wear