Jun Takahashi, Undercover’s Elegant Punk

TOKYO, Japan — “Garments have that means. In any other case, it’s simply cocktail clothes and baggage — and that’s not attention-grabbing.” So says Jun Takahashi, designer of Japanese label Undercover, in a uncommon interview on the firm’s places of work within the Tokyo neighbourhood of Harajuku. It’s a view that’s encapsulated in Undercover’s motto — “We Make Noise, Not Garments” — and mirrored in its wildly imaginative collections, concurrently sinister and playful, which broke down the divide between the road and the runway lengthy earlier than the rise of luxurious streetwear.

Certainly, Takahashi’s label — which turns 25 this 12 months and is celebrating the milestone with a significant retrospective on the Tokyo Opera Metropolis Artwork Gallery, a monograph revealed by Rizzoli and a males’s assortment that riffs on the Undercover archives — is equally well-known for its graphic t-shirts, favoured by youngsters, as its conceptual runway items. The designer insists that, irrespective of the complexity or worth of a garment, he imbues every thing he produces with an equal diploma of creativity, which seems to circulate straight from his thoughts’s seemingly unbounded capability for conjuring up a singular universe of intricate and barely warped fantasies.

There was a interval in Takahashi’s work the place he frequently made monstrous-looking ‘Gila’ dolls (named after a species of venomous lizard) out of teddy bears, and a teddy bear with blocked-out eyes has develop into the model’s unofficial mascot. “In my work I need to categorical not one thing merely fairly or cute, however to search out one thing behind it,” explains Takahashi. “I believe it’s very human. I take that cute teddy bear and I give it a little bit of a shock — that little bit of violence. The mix is one thing that offers it actual magnificence. I’m not denying magnificence, however presenting it in a unique gentle.”

Takahashi was born in 1969 within the small provincial Japanese city of Kiryu, and like many youngsters he inhaled tradition — particularly punk rock — with a purpose to escape his environment. He enrolled in Tokyo’s Bunka Style Faculty in 1988 and not using a clear concept of what he needed to do — till he noticed his first Comme des Garçons present. “I used to be solely a pupil after I went to see a Comme des Garçons present,” he remembers. “I used to be so impressed. It satisfied me to think about vogue design as being utterly free in artistic expression. Together with her work [Rei] Kawakubo stated, ‘It would not matter if it is avant-garde or avenue: creativity is creativity.'”

Armed with this newly discovered freedom, Takahashi launched Undercover in 1990. He and his good friend Nigo (the designer, file producer and entrepreneur who went on to discovered A Bathing Ape in 1993) have been already recognized within the Tokyo youth tradition scene (Takahashi performed in a punk-rock band referred to as The Tokyo Intercourse Pistols). Collectively, they opened a retailer referred to as Nowhere, the place Takahashi offered his first t-shirts. At the moment, his function mannequin was Vivienne Westwood, who equally drew on the tradition of punk rock along with her iconic London store Intercourse.

Like Westwood, Takahashi wouldn’t be restricted to creating t-shirts. “I needed to make punk elegant,” says the designer. “It was pure for me to interpret music or motion pictures that I grew up with — that formed me. I used to be at all times fascinated by riot. So, I made a decision to make garments that aren’t merely stunning; I needed to interpret tradition into vogue.” In 1994, Takahashi offered his first girls’s runway present in Tokyo. One of many assortment’s standout items was an artfully deformed MA-1 bomber jacket, and one of many first folks to purchase one was none aside from Rei Kawakubo.

When visiting the Comme des Garçons store shortly after, one of many salespeople advised Takahashi that Kawakubo was additionally fascinated by shopping for a pair of Undercover sneakers. Takahashi despatched them to her as a present, Kawakubo responded with a thanks letter and the 2 started corresponding by mail, quickly putting up a friendship. Kawakubo impressed Takahashi to transcend the boundaries of Tokyo, and in 2002, he lastly took his girls’s present to Paris. “Rei has been very emotionally supportive,” says Takahashi. “Earlier than our first Paris present she was speaking to everybody about Undercover. So many individuals got here to see the present due to her.”

Kawakubo stays Takahashi’s function mannequin to this present day. “In Europe many designers are owned by vogue conglomerates, however in Japan we are typically impartial. Rei is the mannequin for that. She’s completely impartial: proprietor, president and designer. She controls every thing. However after all she additionally has Adrian,” says Takahashi, referring to Adrian Joffe, Rei Kawakubo’s husband and the chief govt of Comme des Garçons, who has been instrumental within the firm’s success.

Discovering his personal Adrian Joffe is Takahashi’s largest problem. At current, Takahashi stays actively concerned in managing Undercover’s day-to-day operations, his least favorite exercise. “Managing and controlling the corporate could be very arduous. I’m not the kind of particular person to handle issues. I began the corporate, so, after all, I can’t keep away from it,” explains Takahashi. “We’re nonetheless a comparatively small firm and battle with monetary points. I’m not actually fascinated by making some huge cash. I’m solely fascinated by creating wealth insofar because it permits me to be free to pursue my artistic tasks.”

Along with 51 doorways in Japan, together with 5 straight operated retail shops, Undercover is at the moment offered in 24 shops in Asia, 23 shops in North America, 19 shops in Europe and three shops in Australia — together with Kawakubo’s Dover Street Market shops. The corporate declined to disclose exact figures, however Undercover makes the vast majority of its gross sales income in Asia. Penetrating Europe and North America has been more difficult, although the model has a hardcore following in these areas and its Paris reveals constantly draw reward for his or her inventiveness.

A part of the problem are the excessive transportation and obligation prices related to exporting product from Japan to the West, which suggests objects are priced at about forty p.c extra by the point they hit the racks in Europe and North America. What’s extra, in these areas Undercover is essentially often known as an avant-garde, high-end vogue model, whereas in Japan and the remainder of Asia it’s higher capable of commerce on its cheaper, youth-focused choices — bolstering revenues within the area. “In the previous few years we’ve put extra effort into streetwear,” Takahashi explains. “We needed a brand new strategy to younger folks and we started to provide extra accessible merchandise to have the ability to attain them. In Japan and the remainder of Asia, we put extra effort into that, whereas in Europe we haven’t carried out that.” Certainly, in Asia, Undercover provides a fundamentals line of thin denims and t-shirts and has not too long ago launched two new traces for women and men, JohnUndercover and SueUndercover, which function extra accessible designs and worth factors than the principle line.

Alongside the core enterprise, Takahashi has an ongoing collaboration with Nike since 2010 — the longest in Nike’s historical past. As nicely, Takahashi is pleasant with iconic figures like Hiroshi Fujiwara, the hero of Tokyo streetwear, with whom Undercover additionally collaborates on a clothes line, and Takahiro Miyashita, who used to design Quantity (N)ine and now has an underground line named TheSoloist. Up to now, Takahashi has additionally partnered with Uniqlo to design a youngsters’s line, and most not too long ago, Undercover collaborated on a capsule assortment with Supreme, the reigning champion of skate-inflected attire.

Collaborations, particularly these with giants like Nike and Uniqlo, have helped preserve Undercover afloat in occasions of economic problem. However whereas many designer collaborations immediately can seem like mere advertising and marketing stunts and sources of simple money infusions, those Takahashi chooses to have interaction in replicate one thing deeper, he says. “What all of the collaborations have in widespread is that they make it attainable to do one thing that we can’t do as Undercover. It’s extra like friendships and shared pursuits, and benefiting from one another’s sources,” stated Takahashi. “For instance, Undercover was making kidswear earlier than the Uniqlo collaboration, nevertheless it was too costly and childrenswear shouldn’t be costly. The Nike collaboration occurred as a result of Nike came upon that I’m critical about working. And the Supreme collaboration was born out of mutual respect.”

Twenty-five years after founding Undercover, although Takahashi has grown up and turned down the dial on the punk aggressiveness of his earlier collections, he stays dedicated to creating Undercover a direct reflection of his artistic spirit. There are not any scarcity of concepts, he says, solely challenges to grasp them. “I’m fascinated by every thing. If it is smart to me, whether or not it’s a doll, or artwork, or furnishings, I’ll do it. However I nonetheless make errors — and it’s effective, as a result of they make me enhance.”

“We’re human beings — perfection shouldn’t be cool.”

Editor’s Notice: This text was edited on November 2, 2015. A earlier model of this text misstated that Undercover is at the moment offered in 22 shops in Asia, 15 shops in North America, 20 shops in Europe and 1 retailer in Australia. It’s offered in 24 shops in Asia, 23 shops in North America, 19 shops in Europe and three shops in Australia.