The first thing we knew about SKIZB Drop 01 was the name. Not the design. Not the colors. The name.
Armenian. One word that is doing more work than it looks.
We started ARI because we kept noticing the same absence. Armenian culture, history, and identity is extraordinary — one of the oldest continuous civilizations on earth, the first Christian nation in 301 AD, a language with its own alphabet invented in 405 AD, a diaspora spread across every continent on the planet. And none of that was visible on the clothes Armenians actually wore.
So we made a brand that functions as a record. Each drop carries a specific story. Each garment is numbered. When it is gone, it is gone.
Drop 01 is called The Armenian Heritage. Here is what it is.
The Coat of Arms
The back of the garment carries the Armenian coat of arms — the heraldic emblem of the Republic of Armenia, adopted in 1992 but rooted in imagery that goes back centuries.
Four quadrants, one shield.
The lion on the upper left represents the Arsacid dynasty — the royal house that gave Armenia its first kings. The eagle on the upper right is the Artaxiad dynasty, the rulers who built the Armenian Empire at its greatest extent under Tigran the Great in the 1st century BC. The eagle and the lion together are the two foundations of Armenian statehood.
The lower left shows the double-headed eagle — the emblem of the Rubenid dynasty of Cilician Armenia, the Armenian kingdom that survived in the south while the north fell to invasion. The lower right shows the lion of the Bagratid dynasty, who built the medieval Armenian kingdom and the city of Ani.
At the center of the shield: Mount Ararat with its two peaks, surrounded by water. The mountain that stands inside Armenia's borders as the country sees them, and outside as the maps draw them. It is the most contested and most claimed landscape in the region, and it is on the national emblem of a country that cannot legally enter it. That tension is part of the story.
Surrounding the shield: a broken chain, a sword, an ear of wheat, a feather, and a ribbon in the three colors of the Armenian flag — red, blue, orange.
People. Culture. Standard.
That line sits at the bottom of the back. It is ARI's founding statement. It is also a description of what the coat of arms is. Four dynasties. One people. One standard.
Why 301 AD
The subline reads: First Christian Nation · 301 AD.
In 301 AD, King Tiridates III declared Christianity the state religion of the Kingdom of Armenia. This was not a personal conversion — it was a political and civilizational act that happened before Rome made the same move. Armenia was first.
This matters to us for a specific reason. The Armenian diaspora exists because of a genocide in 1915. The reason the genocide did not erase Armenian identity is because that identity was too old, too deep, and too distributed to destroy. The language, the alphabet, the church, the stories — they survived across countries, generations, and borders because they had been built for fourteen centuries before anyone tried to stop them.
301 AD is the beginning of that chain. It belongs on the garment.
The Colors
Black. The design is white on black. The coat of arms appears exactly as it looks on the national emblem, inverted — a white rendering on a dark field. It reads as an engraving. Something ancient produced by a modern hand.
Off-White. The same design in black on a natural off-white base. The contrast is different. Softer, warmer, closer to the color of tufa stone — the pink-grey volcanic rock that Yerevan is built from.
Two colorways because the same story reads differently in different light.
How to Get It
SKIZB Drop 01 — The Armenian Heritage — is available for pre-order now.
No payment today. On September 21, 2026, a payment link arrives in your inbox. You have 24 hours to complete it. After that, the spot goes to the next person.
Sizes S through XXL. Ships worldwide from Yerevan.
ARI is an Armenian heritage clothing brand based in Yerevan. Every piece is a numbered drop. Every drop carries a story.
SKIZB Drop 01 · The Armenian Heritage · September 21, 2026