CurtOver 10 years in the game, Hao has built one of Australia’s most respected streetwear brands from a joke between mates in Melbourne’s west. We sat down to talk clothing, cars, and what it means to find your Zen.
The first question I ask everyone is, who are you, what do you do, and why do you do what you do?
I’m Hao. I own a clothing brand, been ten years now. I used to do cool car stuff, I guess. Or dumb car stuff. Yeah.
In terms of the clothing brand, you’ve had it for ten years. Where did it start, how did it start, why did it start?
A lot of people actually don’t know the story and I feel like I need to be telling it a bit more.
Started with a group of friends. Growing up in the western suburbs, obviously coming from Asian descent, we all do one job, right? Footscray ten years ago was not clean, it wasn’t the nicest place to be. A lot of my friends were doing illegal activities, let’s say it the nice way. And these guys became my best friends, and I was like, you know what, I’m gonna do it legally. That’s where the name came from. Just a joke between friends.
The brand was originally called Kokaine, K-O-K-A-I-N-E. Then a couple years later we moved into the Japanese logo. And now, ten years later, it’s called Koka Department. Koka.
Was there an evolution of the brand?
It’s not a joke between friends anymore, it’s serious now. It’s an actual business. We’re in stores, we do pop-ups, we need to be family friendly. The collabs we’re doing now are really, really cool and we need to be able to show up properly for that.
I’ve seen a couple of the collabs, you’ve done the Greddy hoodies, Pandem body kits, and now sitting between us, is a Vertex wheel which is really cool. How do you end up putting those together? Do you just reach out to brands?
I actually said this to my partner and friends recently. The collabs I’ve been doing now are a childhood thing. These brands, Vertex, Greddy, Pandem, it’s a relationship thing. It’s not licensing. That’s what a lot of people don’t understand. A lot of collabs, and I’m not knocking them, but you just buy a license, right? These things are human interactions. You need to go to Japan. You need to shake someone’s hand.
Me and Philly went all the way to Bangkok just to speak to the Vertex guys, just for that ten minute interaction. We went to Tokyo Auto Salon to give them a jacket, just so they could touch and feel it. I sent them a CAD file and they were like, what the hell is this? They need to hold it. That’s what makes it real.
What would you say your favourite collab has been?
McDonald’s. That was actually really cool.
For a brand to recognise a brand like ours, that’s a big stepping stone. It made us feel like, okay, we can do shit. Like, we can actually do this.
For context, every year we donate clothes and money to Ronald McDonald House. We never said anything about it, doesn’t need to be told. And then they came to us and said, hey, do you want to do something really cool? We jumped on it straight away. We pulled so many cars. It was hectic.
And we’re doing it again this year. Hopefully something cooler.
Yeah, I remember, I attended this one a little late, it was so hectic, I couldn’t even get Maccas!
Going back a bit, what got you into cars in the first place?
My dad. He was a massive Schumacher fan. So growing up it was all Formula One. All I drew as a kid was Ferraris and F1 cars, it was really weird.
And then my brother. That guy, I reckon he has ADHD or some shit. He could just sit in a car and you’d show him the rear quarter of something and he’d name it instantly. Brand, model, year, done. That’s intense! This was the era of Trading Post ads, we would sift through em! That’s where my love of cars comes from.
And how did you then move into Japanese cars?
Japanese cars were just all we knew. It’s what was cheap, obtainable, and desirable for us. My first manual was a CRX, an EF/ED, and my first actual car was a 180SX when I was sixteen. CA18det, auto.
That’s what we call the $3000 weekend special!
Your current fleet, what’s it look like?
Terrible.
No, but you know what? I think I’ve ticked off one of each realm, which is great!
180 Type X, ’98, last of its kind. A fully built, fully restored, took it too far honestly. If I had to do it again I’d just pop a stock motor in and enjoy the car. I’ve come to learn that. A Honda CRX SiR with a b18c2, fully restored, I bought like five CRXs to build one car, which was ridiculous. A 350Z that’s a dedicated drift car, funnily enough the most reliable thing I own. And a Tesla.
***Editors note: Hao just built a car collaborating with Pandem that he failed to list here: A Datsun 1200 with an SR20DE – It’s honestly one of the wildest cars you will see. It wasn’t at his shop at the time of writing this, but I have seen it in person. Dont worry, I’ll get some pictures and feature it soon!
With the whole EV thing, are you for or against it?
I’m for EV, yeah. Because I drive every single type of car. Like, my Datsun 1200 that I just finished building, that thing is ridiculous. But the great thing about the EV is, it works. You jump in, it works. If it’s a car that takes you A to B, that’s all it needs to be. It does its job.
What’re your thoughts on the current car industry at the moment, do you find it sad or kind of cool that theres a new EV / car on the block that you cant just instantly recognise?
I think it’s evolution. We’re getting new shapes and new models. It’s like when you go overseas and you see a car you’ve never seen and you’re like, what is that? We’re just getting that here now. I think that’s kind of cool.
If you had a favourite car that you’ve owned or still own, what would it be?
…
What I feel most at home in is always a 180. Bad days, good days, breakups, personal problems, you jump in the 180 and it feels like home. I feel zen. Like, that is my car. Everything feels good in a 180 regardless even a piece of shit 180, or a good 180.
Car I regret selling is my R35. Lots of power, smooth, reliable, technology that does what it needs to do. Shouldn’t have let that go.
Shifting gears a bit into the influencer, YouTube, Instagram side of things. I’m assuming you started that to promote the clothing brand and now it’s sort of grown into its own thing, people would see you as an influencer maybe?
I dont love the word.
It’s funny ’cause I was always a fashion dude. I always wanted to be influencial in the fashion scene.
I was also, this is weird to say, a closet car guy. Like five, six years ago, it wasn’t cool to be a car guy. You were a grease monkey. But cars were always in the background of everything I did. I’ve always owned a 180, always had something going on.
At some point I just stopped caring about the content I thought I should be making and started creating the stuff I actually wanted to create. And cars were always number one.
The other thing is I never wanted to be the informative car guy. I don’t want to be the reason you blow your engine up. Like, I’m not telling you which parts to use. The word I’d use is document. I just document what I do with cars. That’s it.
I’m not Mighty Car Mods, I’m not B is for Build im not doing any of that kind of stuff.
It was always supposed to promote the brand and then I became the brand.
What would be next for Hao and Koka Dept.?
Koka Dept? I’d love it to live without me, but I’ve realised, it wont ever. We tested it and we are cool with that. Im fine with being the face of it and being held accountable.
For the brand, more stores, more B2B, less B2C. We want to stay community based because that’s genuinely how we built this. Our brand was actually built on community.
For me personally, I want to do more personality stuff. Game shows, more interaction, more human stuff. I love building cars, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t want to get into that cycle of building cars, selling cars, building cars. You see a lot of car guys become that style of influencer. That’s not me. I love my cars, I want to hold onto them. I want a deep meaningful thing with my car.
How do you find your Zen?
Super cliche. Doing what I’m doing.
Like, I’m doing what I love is my Zen right now. Not being able to do what I love… would be insane.
For me right now, it’s just, the zen of just being able to work in cars, being able to do it at my own pace. Being able to create really cool shit, and, like, making sure that sixteen year old me is fucking proud.
Yeah, straight up, I still have those moments that I sit back and realise I’m doing something really fucking cool.
I feel like that’s where I find peace.
The goal is/was never money. It’s always trying to do something cool.
I’m always trying to pivot and move towards a different direction, but still stay in my lane and enjoy something.
Just enjoy life.
Find Koka Department at kokadept.com, on Instagram at @kokadept and on TikTok at @kokadept. Follow Hao on Instagram at @haophu_ and on TikTok at @haophu_.
https://www.kokadept.com/https://www.instagram.com/kokadept/
https://www.instagram.com/haophu_/
https://www.tiktok.com/@kokadept
https://www.tiktok.com/@haophu_
