Everyone remembers being bored in class and using your ballpoint pen to doodle on your jeans, right? And then getting accosted by your mom when she did the laundry and your stupid little “S” made out of straight lines bled onto legit every other piece of clothing your family owns. Or maybe that was just me. But you remember.

And so does Gabi, founder of Secret Heart. While most of us stopped drawing on our jeans in middle or high school, Gabi kept the dream alive, illustrating her favorite anime characters all over her denim canvases in school — while she was teaching.

“I started Secret Heart in 2016 when I was a substitute teacher,” Gabi told me. “I used to draw on my jeans all day, to like, get through the day.”

As Gabi posted her creations on social media, more people took notice. And they wanted Gabi to draw on their jeans, too. Pretty soon, Gabi was whipping up 1-of-1 customs for her rapidly growing fanbase, likely wishing she knew how to grow unlimited arms like Robin from One Piece.

Now, Secret Heart runs full collections and collaborates with brands like, well, us. To celebrate the release of The Hundreds X Secret Heart, which features original characters based on Gabi and her two cats, I caught up with her mostly to learn more about this insane body pillow we made.

DUKE LONDON: How did you start Secret Heart?
GABI: It was just anime on jeans, pretty much. And it was only for me, and then some friends. Eventually, I made an Instagram account and started getting some attention from people wanting to order their own 1-of-1 jeans. I met my partner about a year later, and he helped me learn about production and making more than just one-off pieces. We started working on little collections together and that’s what we’re still doing.

When you first started getting orders for custom jeans, were you surprised? And also, how did you know what to price them at?
[Laughs] Yeah, I never thought anyone would want to buy anything from me, so getting DMs constantly was crazy. I was sending some of the jeans out to cool stylists I like, and that’s how my jeans were ending up on Charli XCX and Rico Nasty and Doja Cat, people who are now huge but at the time were just coming up. Pricing-wise, I way undersold my worth. I had no concept of what it should cost.

What’s the balance between collections and custom commissions?
My background and my partner’s background are all based on 1-of-1’s, we both just like making one thing. Realistically, we don’t get to do that as much as we’d like anymore because of the time constraints. They’re so time-consuming. But every once in awhile, we’ll make something for ourselves. But we can’t really do commissions anymore, unfortunately.

How did you decide to start doing the templated lookbook shots on your Instagram, with the character diagrams and pop-up fun facts?
I’ve always been extremely influenced by everything Japanese. I got my hands on Fruits Magazine in high school and used to obsess over those. I would buy any old, used Japanese magazines I could find and those are still on my shelves and super influential to what we do at Secret Heart. At a certain point, our Instagram feed was just looking boring. It was all jeans. So, to spice it up a little, I started trying out photo editing. And I really enjoy it now, even though it’s completely out of my wheelhouse.

What do you love about Japanese culture?
My mom would take me to the Nisei Festival every year in Little Tokyo, ever since I was a little kid. I loved it, it was the one thing I would look forward to every year. All the different characters. I was always an art kid and I loved how Japanese characters looked compared to American cartoons. I don’t know exactly what drew me into it but it’s so different from what we have here.

Who were some of your favorite anime characters, then and now?
My favorite anime from the beginning of time is this one called Fruit Basket and it recently got rebooted so it’s popular, but when I was growing up, no one knew what it was. I was obsessed with Pokemon like every Millennial kid.

Do you plan on expanding the Arcade and Scratch universe?
I really want to because they’re mine. Now, I can do whatever I want with these characters and that’s really exciting. I don’t know how people are going to react to her. I hope they like her because I think she’s cute. But in terms of a backstory, she’s just a very crazy version of myself. And her sidekick Scratch is a mixture of my two cats Frankenstein’d together.

What is different about Secret Heart than any other anime-based brands out there in streetwear?
There are a lot. I like to think I’m the mom of all these other brands. I’m generally older than most of the kids starting them. And I see a lot of them starting the same way I did, with 1-of-1’s and commissions. The biggest difference to me is that I wasn’t getting influence from anywhere for my original jean layouts. It was just what I wanted to wear so I made it. A lot of these other brands are really looking around and getting a lot of inspiration from their peers. I don’t know, that sounds like “I was the first and did it better” but… [Laughs].

Have you run into any complications by ripping art from these anime?
Knock on wood but I’ve been pretty lucky so far. In Japan, there is a huge fan art culture. If you go to an anime convention, one whole floor is usually all fan art. In my mind, I think that’s why I’ve been able to get away with it for so long. The main reason I haven’t sought licensing is that I know they wouldn’t allow me to do what I do with their characters.

How is anime culture different now than it was when you started Secret Heart four years ago?
Fans of anime were into anime, that’s how it was. Now, anime looks cool so even if people don’t watch the show, they want to wear a shirt with that character on it. That’s a big pull. I get a lot of customers who tell me they’ve never watched the anime but this looks sick. Streetwear and rap cultures are also going through an anime phase, so it’s cool now. When I was in high school, the weird kids liked anime. It wasn’t popular. But now, I have high school kids asking me to hold items until they get their paychecks.

We’ve made throw pillows and stuff before but this body pillow hits different.
It’s a common thing in hardcore anime fan culture to get a body pillow with your anime waifu on it. I’m obsessed with these things, they’re so weird. Some of them are cute and you can put them on your couch or in your bed, but some of them, you don’t want anyone in your life to see. I just love the idea of exposing streetwear culture to this weird, obscure anime thing.