The tmrw Digital Cover
NICHOLAS of &TEAM
Why Not?
By HASAN BEYAZ
PHOTOGRAPHER: KANTO KUROSAWA // STYLIST: RIKI YAMADA // MAKE-UP: SAE TAKAGI // HAIR: NARUMI TOSHIMA (CONTINUE)
On a rainy May morning, &TEAM’s NICHOLAS is focused in the way that people are when they're completely at ease. This shoot is set under red lighting, and he’s pleased about it. "I think red light or blue light fits me the best," he says. The images bear that out, and he knows exactly what he's doing in front of a camera. "I know my strong points; my eyes can be really sharp." It's a precise kind of self-awareness, the sort that only comes from years of paying close attention.
NICHOLAS is one-ninth of &TEAM, a global group under HYBE – the company behind BTS – who debuted in 2022 with the ambition to do something no one had done before.
Around the time of our shoot, &TEAM had been moving fast. Their latest EP, We on Fire, sold over 1.2 million copies in its first week. Their ongoing 21-date Asia tour, BLAZE THE WAY, culminates in a two-day dome encore at the Belluna Dome in September – the same venue where, just weeks before our shoot, they collected the Performance of the Year Grand Prize at the Asia Star Entertainer Awards; they're going back as headliners. A slot at KCON LA 2026 in August marks their first Stateside performance. The momentum is beginning to look like inevitability.
Within &TEAM, NICHOLAS’ expressiveness is something that fans tend to fixate on. The group's werewolf concept, which runs through their DARK MOON universe, has given him a particular kind of canvas: sharp eyes, instinctive movement, a stage presence that reads as something feral and controlled at once. He's leaned into it. "Fans would say it looks like a real werewolf," he tells me later. "I liked hearing that a lot."
But NICHOLAS isn't just a musical artist anymore. He's also becoming a creative director. WENO-ISM – his fashion project, launched in partnership with Japanese select shop NUBIAN – has made its debut as a limited collection that reflects his personal worldview and creative philosophy through apparel. The project, as he tells me, takes its name from his childhood nickname: a misspelling of his own name that his family kept, and which in Korean sounds like the word for "why not." That phrase, it turns out, is the closest thing to a philosophy he has. It runs through everything – his decision to leave for Seoul, the years of training, the fashion history books he bought to understand why certain designs become iconic. Do it first; understand it after.