18/03/2022
Following up on last week’s Japanese theme, this week I’m joined by Ian Haydock, Lancashire born, Tokyo resident. We talk about his family history in the Lancashire textile industry, the joy of sifting through the Tokyo second-hand shops, especially finding forgotten British brands, how the ecosystem of vintage and secondhand garments works in Tokyo and the collector mentality. You can…
11/03/2022
Today’s guest is Takè Sato, former fashion editor of Smart magazine in Japan and fashion editor of Monocle magazine. Today Takè is based in London and works as a creative director and fashion stylist. He recently published “An obsession made in Japan”, about the “happy victims”, fashion victims, as documented by Kyoichi Tsuzuki. We talk about the Japanese otakus (aka…
23/06/2019
Over the soon 7 years I’ve been writing this blog, I have been on something of an adventure. Or a treasure hunt, if you like. I’ve built up a decent collection of pieces and sold or passed on a fair number as well. It would also be fair to say that there has been an escalation in what catches the…
06/02/2016
This weeks book is a natural follow-up to my recent review of “Ametora“, the book about how the Japanese adopted the Ivy style from the US, improved it and exported it back. Well, in few words at least, the story is twistier and more involved than that. Yet “Take Ivy”, in both film and book, was instrumental in the process,…
24/01/2016
I tend to buy most of the books published within the scope covered on this blog, and they tend to follow a quite similar formula along the lines of “plenty of photos, a bare minimum of text, nice layout and a quality feel”. Most of them would be considered more for browsing than actually reading.This weeks book turns the formula…
12/03/2013
In my series of presentations of labels I consider worth keeping an eye on, today has brought us to the tiny Northern label of Mamnick. Situated in the defunct steel town of Sheffield in Yorkshire (a town I also have family ties to), Mamnick is named after a road in the Peak District, just outside of Sheffield. Mamnick isn’t so…
05/03/2013
In this episode of “Labels to watch”, we’re looking at another of the tiny UK-based, 2-person companies doing interesting things whilst being under the radar of most folks. ARN Mercantile is the label of Neil and Akimi, the name being made up of their initials combined with that of their son, Robin. The Mercantile comes from the period when Neil…