First of all thanks to Shuhei for sharing this very interesting interview.
After thinking about the last months happenings and realizing more and more what we human
beings will face in the future and will need to dramatically change in our comfortable money
driven capitalistic world, I bumped into below interview which shows me that leaders in
the fashion world deeply think of what and how to change their business in order to survive in
a sustainable way.
Japanese consumption has been one of the front tier over the last decades when it comes to
service, merchandising, production, product selection and quality.
Everyone who has been in Japan can clearly confirm that esp. cities like Tokyo and Osaka
are unique islands of "well developed consume behaviors", experienced, resistant and
consciously manipulated....
But facing current world wide financial and natural disasters, issues to provide education,
health insurance and food to a larger group of people,
hopefully might change the way of how people think about
Fashion and other consumer goods which simply help expressing your individuality, style &
personality in a superficial and shallow way.
Part 1 :Factors in Fashion
This time, we called on Hirofumi Kurino, founding member of United Arrows and authority on the business of fashion, at his home.
Approaching the single family home in Setagaya-ku Tokyo, we were thinking ‘if you are gonna have someone tell you about clothes, there is only one man to speak to!’. There, three generations of the Kurino clan cohabitate; Kurino’s commitment to family is as deep as his history in fashion is long.
On Working in the Fashion World
Fashion is something that is can be understood on many levels, though “change” has always been of fundamental importance. But change, does not in and of itself, give something value.
Since the sub-prime loan collapse, many areas of society have had to change dramatically. Until now, we have both produced and consumed a great deal. Now that that system has broken down, we are not likely to continue being a society based on making newer and newer things and disposing of them only to make newer and newer things. People all over the world rotate on different axes, but basically we are all moving toward the idea that we are needlessly consuming.
So while it may seem that the “fast fashion” mindset has taken over our habits of consumption, I really don’t think that it can ever become a truly deciding factor. I mean, from now on, the way we buy will go in a different direction. An example is what you are doing now, Mr. Toyama, with PTB. Giving more meaning to what and how we consume.
That is not to say we haven’t given meaning to the way we buy, but in the past we didn’t put much serious thought into it. People just needed some sort of justification for what they bought.
In the 80s, the justification was that we wanted to appear successful. In the 90s, the justification was to be “on trend”. The first 10 years of the 21st century have been a transition period in which those two excuses were all mixed up and used together.
From now on, people will look at a purchase from the standpoint of either, does this have meaning? Or, does this have value? I think consumers here in Japan will become that way within the next five years.
Are people becoming more individually conscientious?
Yes, people are really considering whether items have a specifimeaning for them. At PTB, you sell every item with a story, right? Every item, therefore is sold as a set with the experiences of the previous owner. In that way, a baton is passed between the meaning the item held for the first owner and the meaning it can share with the second, or how the second owner interprets the item’s meaning for his/her own use. It’s not about buying is what is en vogue, not buying what is famous, but buying what is meaningful to you on a personal level. I think that is only going to become more and more of a widespread phenomenon. For fashion, that means we will see more avant-garde, more conceptual fashion. When the economy is good, conservative items sell well. When the economy goes bad, more creative goods start to sell well. That paradigm is something we have been taught for long years, and in fact is true just now. What sells now are things that really strike you, or otherwise make your lifestyle more fun, give some kind of theme to your life—that’s why temporary items becoming unsellable is a good thing, because we are really coming face to face with our goods. This, to me, this can be an effect of a bad economy, and a really important point in the change in the concept of value since 2008. I think that if we are forced to rethink fashion, which once was about people and their relationship to clothing in general, as now being about people and their relationship to particular articles of clothing. On the future of Japan and Fashion
I have been in apparel for 33 years, and I think that what Japan can do as an advanced consumer nation is provide a new model to show the world. Probably, Tokyo is already number one in terms of fashion, culture, service and business methods……. If that is true, I think it is natural that we should come to export this culture as well. If Japan begins to transmit culture to the world, then that would be a role Japan should fulfill. That is the role of being an developed consumer nation, and that is what we should do. Just as I happen to think that individually, I guess it was fortunate that United Arrows was founded on the common principle of “meaningful retail” 20 years ago. There is no discrepancy between what I believe as a person and our beliefs as a company. “Make your real style” is UA’s company policy, so let us make items that are real for you and from them we make our own real style, Let us help you with your shopping, Let us help you make your life more enjoyable is really our company policy. Thanks to that we were able to survive, even in this type of era. Text Machiko Nomura Translation Kelly Kikuchi
