Edge, attitude, scarcity, hype – all of these attributes come to mind the second someone mentions “streetwear.”

But, sustainability? Not usually…or at least, not until now.

Broken Planet (originally Broken Planet Market) founding duo Lukas Žvikas and Indrė Narbutaitė certainly stand out in a crowd. Dressed head to toe in their own graphic brand paired with flashy Chrome Hearts jewelry and the most limited of sneaker releases, the couple hopes their openness and philosophy towards environmental consciousness in fashion catch a consumer’s eye as surely as their outfits do. Leveraging the scarcity of one-time limited edition drops combined with meaningful yet cool nature-focused graphics that Indrė herself draws by hand, Broken Planet champions fashion for the planet, instead of just your closet.

We’ve seen a sustainability focus emerge in other fashion areas in recent years, but streetwear has been slow to catch up. Indrė and Lukas put this aspect first and foremost in an unconventional way that’s proven to be an immediate hit with their audience. Their social media-based marketing tactics have both built a devoted brand community and launched Broken Planet into cult status within the UK and international streetwear scene. Each limited drop sells out, with fans of the brand rushing to the comment what they’ve secured on the company posts upon checking out, connecting with – or boasting to – other members. Tagged photos go on and on, and it certainly looks like Broken Planet has succeeded in building both a support network and a consumer family within the streetwear scene. The brand even holds unique raffles with each drop, featuring limited edition “Friends and Family” designs to raise charitable contributions through their own community organization (Broken Planet Foundation.) Every individual raffle has garnered anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 three-quid entries thus far, with proceeds going fully to the charity.

Hosting live events in cities around the world has proven to be another popular way for the brand to connect with their audience, including New York Fashion Week amongst their string of international pop-ups. Hosted at the interactive Bowery Showroom in New York City last year’s Spring/Summer 2024 season, the event attracted a lengthy line stretching down the block of fans waiting to get their hands on limited edition NYC-themed shirts and newly released graphic pieces. Skateboards and oversized tee shirts lined the walls along with branded Broken Planet ornamental arrangements scattered throughout the room. The edgy designs mixed in seamlessly with the trendy sneakers and futuristic sunglasses on display at the Showroom, and almost every guest was wearing at least one Broken Planet-branded garment with pride as they browsed the curated selection available for purchase. Lukas and Indrė mingled with the crowd, helping their small team pull orders, taking questions, and making general conversation – refreshingly down to earth, the two seemed just as elated as their guests were to be here. Knowing their story of how the partners built the brand into an international community out of their small apartment flat all on their own, it’s fair to say they have good reason to be excited and in their element at NYFW.

From a humble start built on determination, to gaining international cult status almost overnight on Tiktok, to a packed first pop-up event at New York Fashion Week…Broken Planet seems to be blasting ahead at the speed of light on their mission to spread awareness of the environmental impacts of modern society through their uniquely meaningful and high-quality streetwear designs – with no plans on stopping anytime soon.

MEET THE DESIGNERS BEHIND BROKEN PLANET

Indrė, Lukas, thanks so much for taking a moment to chat amidst the madness – it has to be a sweltering 96 degrees today in NYC, and there’s still a line outside all the way down the block for this latest event. You must be proud. If you had to put it into just a sentence, how would you describe what it is that you’ve built here, with this brand and this community?

Lukas Žvikas: It’s always hard to answer something like that in a sentence, I’m not going to lie to you. 

Indrė Narbutaitė: I think that what it is, is that it’s more than just one sentence. So I guess that’s the sentence! The brand has so many layers – it’s never either just about clothes or people. It’s very much our life’s mission now: to take this and make it a whole legacy. As a brand that started from the bedroom on Tiktok, we just want to make something that won’t die out. It’ll grow with our audience. This community that we have – we always feel bad for them [standing in a hot queue], but then they’re actually telling us “it’s the best day of my life, I made so many new friends, it’s a memory I’ll never forget.” People come back after a year, and they’re still in those same friendship groups. You can’t just put that into a sentence.

You started Broken Planet out of your flat, yourselves, from nothing. If you could go back and do it all over again, what’s one thing you had to learn the hard way that you wish you knew at the start?

LZ: Expect the unexpected. 

IN: Yes! We didn’t have any stock fully prepared, and we were so surprised when our posts went viral at the very start.

LZ: We learned from that never to take things for granted. The things that you least expect – always happen. Even to this day, it’s the same thing. We expect the stock to come and be here, but it’s always late…

IN: It comes on the morning of the pop-up, of course! The stock came just this morning; the staff’s been here almost a week, too. We’ve been here in this situation before (too many times) but thankfully we have a good team and they handle it so well. But to give you an answer, we couldn’t change anything at the start – if one single thing went differently, then the outcome would probably have turned out differently. In the first four drops, we were hand-sewing in all the labels on the back of the hoodies with no prior experience in packing, sewing, handling stock, or ordering.

LZ: But all of it is part of our story. Everyone has a different path and journey – it’s really personal. People always ask us for advice, but I don’t know what to tell them. 

What do you end up telling those people who want to get to where you are?

LZ: Always be uncomfortable with the work that you put out. Say “it’s never enough, I want to do better next time.” That’s the urge that pushes you to improve as you go. A lot of brands these days come into the game, do something crazy, do something meaningful, but…they just get comfortable with it and then push out the same thing over and over. But we’re never comfortable. We want to know, how can we improve this? Can we drop this piece? Can we make a zipper better? It’s always that journey of improvement. 

IN: Be uncomfortable, but celebrate your wins! Then make yourself uncomfortable again. 

LZ: If you said 3 years ago we’d be doing a pop-up like this, we would have been sweating. [laughs] Just totally stressing out. But now, we’ve been here before because we pushed for it. For us, what makes us excited is the risk-taking. If we do something risky and pull it off…

IN: It’s like a drug. I literally get chills thinking about it. We were planning to do a regular pop-up in London [for the last event] but then we realized, it’s not enough. It’s not going to really please us. We called the team, said “cancel everything, we’re building a gas station.” They thought we’d lost our minds. [Note: The resulting immersive Shoreditch gas station pop-up on August 5 was a riotous success with both the brand’s fans and on social media. It was even complete with wrapped cars and neon for the latest “Cosmic Speed” collection.]

LZ: It’s not the healthiest way to live your life, but that’s the game and that’s how fashion is unfortunately. I don’t think it’s going to change anytime soon. … We still have the mindset of when we just had 1000 orders. Sometimes I don’t think we realize just how big the brand is now. We still treat it like when we were two months in, and just keep pushing the brand forward. That’s what keeps us growing so quickly.

And you are pushing boundaries in fashion, too. Sustainable streetwear – you were one of the first to really do that well and blow it up online. I’ve followed your journey now for years because of that sustainability aspect; do you see others coming to you saying that you’re the change they wanted to see? 

IN: Absolutely. Especially when people come to us in real life. They come to us with this appreciation that we took a different route to sustainability. We didn’t want to be the brand that’s continuously talking about it; the second you push it, that’s the second people don’t want to talk about it. So we thought to make the most sustainable part the relationship that people have with their pieces; rather than just talking about it, or even production itself.

LZ: It’s funny, we don’t push it at all but people come to us and assume already that we are doing sustainable things with the fabrics and the production. It’s just a given. 

The limited drop model too drives that, I’d think. It’s like an art collection, rather than just having something to wear. The pieces don’t ever come back for reissue.

IN: That’s what’s part of the love for streetwear that we have personally always had, too. How hard it is to get the pieces, how well we actually treat them and treasure them once we have them. It’s a powerful feeling, and we still think a lot of brands haven’t tapped into that part of sustainability. Sure, they’ll do organic cotton…but then they’ll make thousands and thousands of pieces available. Then eventually it’s on sale. And does it really matter if it’s organic cotton, if someone buys it thinking they can just throw it away later? That defeats the whole purpose of sustainability. That’s why it’s our motto to focus on sustainability without pushing it – the people that get a piece from a drop, get it. The people who don’t get a piece by missing out on a drop, well…they don’t even know that they just shopped more sustainably by not shopping at all.

You’ve ventured out from sweats and tees into socks, denim, hats, and other pieces on these drops recently. You’ve even built a gas station! What’s next for Broken Planet?

IN: We’re looking for ways to bring the community together even more. The pop-ups have opened our eyes on how people in the queue become friends, have experiences. We want them to feel like they’re part of something bigger – it’s not just clothing or things. 

LZ: More of that risk-taking. We want to do bigger events, more exciting things, more gatherings. The reason we’re here is community, at the end of the day. 

Everyone here today is wearing Broken Planet. 

LZ: That’s right. We just want to keep giving back, showing the people in our community that we are tight knitted, not just selling clothes. That’s the main part of this brand overall so pushing events, parties, and pop-ups in different parts of the world is important to us. 

IN: More exclusive things that you can get only in certain events, too. It’s something you can get as memorabilia, someone could start a collection even. You’ll never throw away a piece that you had to be there to get, so we really love that concept. … We’re hoping to show the different levels of creativity that we have. We look at all of this [gesturing to the pop-up and ever-growing queue outside] …it’s not just streetwear, it’s an entire little world. A story. It’s a whole universe that we are creating, with every single drop.

And it’s a universe with the only I heart NYC shirt that I would ever wear.

IN: Amen to that. I’m never throwing this one away.

Editor’s Note: As we walked away from the heat of the moment into the heat of the street, I couldn’t help but rub my fingers absentmindedly over the little metal keychain with Broken Planet’s signature smiley skeleton hugging a bubbly hand-drawn “I Heart NYC” blurb scrawled by Indrė. The duo had pushed it into my hand on the way out, as a keepsake of a brief connection for a community across the ocean on a random day in one of the biggest cities in the world. I worked the thick ring onto my copiously overburdened keys, not thinking for a moment about the extra weight it might add to the already heavy set. In fact, all I could think was that this cheeky little memento mori from two London artists might just take a bit of weight off when I’m feeling stressed one day, reminding me that anything can happen when you believe in yourself, stand strong in your own morals, and find a likeminded community that has your back. Want to know a secret? Sometimes on days like this, I inwardly really do Heart NYC.

CREDITS

Brand: Broken Planet @brokenplanet 

Designers: Indrė Narbutaitė & Lukas Žvikas

Writer/Interviewed by: Laur Weeks @laur.weeks

Photographer: Charles Barnes @charles.l.barnes

PR: Karl Kassardjian @karlkassardjian

Venue: Bowery Showroom NYC @boweryshowroom