Originally wanted to run a furniture store, so I worked at a furniture store in Kyoto.

After that, I came to Tokyo because I wanted to work in another place. I visited some shops, but I ended up working for a company.

Actually, the parent company of that company is an apparel company, and after working for a while, I was assigned to work in the apparel industry.

I began to think that I would like to start a shop by myself, as I made special orders from manufacturers and got permission to customize items in the shop, so I started the shop as a company employee. That was around 2004.

A friend of mine told me, "I have a small property," and I went to see it at a property of 2 tsubo and a half in Shimokitazawa that I still rent as a FRAGSHIP SHOP.

I started it all of a sudden, so I didn't have any money, so I bought cheap military goods and customized them.

In my case, I started making my own clothes for a more compelling reason (laughs). When I buy military goods, I always have large ones left over.

Oversize clothes are selling well now, but at that time skinny pants were in their prime and they didn't sell at all. But the store space is limited, so we have to deal with it somehow.

As a result, it's not just about custom tweaks to existing clothes, it's about remaking them in earnest. This is where KLASICA started as a brand. It was from 2005 to 2006.

No, I like clothes, but I have never studied fashion.

I was enrolled in the liberal arts department of a four-year university, but I wanted to have a furniture store, so I entered graduate school to study furniture after graduation. It is a public graduate school, and it was a laboratory where you can study things like combining psychology and environmental modeling.

Yes, I think that's right.

Because of that, I couldn't understand the stories of the people who came from science at all, and I couldn't study deeply during my two years of graduate school (laugh). It was a period when I learned many interesting things.

Rather than doing custom or remakes, I just had to change the original clothes, and it became something. I was introduced to a fabric store for the procurement of fabric, and I was able to deal with it rather smoothly.

But when I gradually started to make something original, I hit a lot of obstacles.

For example, when I wanted to make a shirt, I would go to my acquaintance's pattern, but even if I looked at the sample and thought "something is different," I couldn't tell him what was different and how.

I want to make it a little bigger or a little thicker, but I don't know where to make it bigger. Even if the pattern says "How many millimeters do you want?" I have no idea if 5 mm is the best size or if 3 cm is needed.

I had no choice but to ask the patterner.

"What happens if I change this by this much mm?"

"I think it will be like this,"

"Then why don't you try this?"

"I'll have to try it."

"Can you give it a try?"

It's like that. It's still a lot of trial and error around here, and it's still not like you can make the clothes you want in one shot right away.

When I first became interested in fashion, or rather clothes, I was in the 5 ~ 6 th grade of elementary school when I was introduced to Takara's "Combat Joe" figure series.

Originally, there was a figure series called "G.I. Joe" sold by a company called Hasbro in America, but Takara put out a replica of it.

It is a figure wearing uniforms of various times of the armies of various countries such as German army and American army. The details of the uniform were interesting at that time, and it was fun just to look at it.

Maybe. I think it was made precisely so that it would appeal to the maniacs.

It was a half coat made by a Japanese casual clothes maker. At that time, I wasn't really conscious of whether it was military or vintage, but the design was like a single of a 4-pocket P coat from the 20's.

It was a little over my budget, but I really wanted it and I remember buying it with an advance of my allowance.

Let me see. I've liked going to a military store since I was an elementary school student.

My grandfather was from Kyoto, and whenever I went to Kyoto, I would always go to a military store in Kyogoku, look at toy guns and gadgets and indulge in them.

Yes, it is. It is a military store that has the shop in Kyoto, so there are many people who go there regularly.

An artist I happened to meet the other day also said that he used to go to that shop often when he was in Kyoto.

When I was a child, I couldn't buy those items easily, but when I was a student, the number of used military clothes increased, so I often went to buy them.

There are many days when I go to buy my favorite wine and drink it.

I would’ve already drank it on that night (laughs). Also, I like motorcycles and bicycles, so I’d run the engine and go to big vintage furniture stores that are a little far away, or go to an antique market on weekends.

Lately, I'd like to do Tenkara fishing, fly fishing and longboard surfing as my hobbies.

Yes. Before the pandemic hit, I went to surf 2 ~ 3 times and get help from experienced people, but in the current situation, I haven't been there at all because I thought it might cause trouble to them.

I would like to go there again when things settle down, but I don't remember it at all anymore, so I will probably start from scratch again (laughs).

I try not to do so much. The city of Tokyo, where KLASICA is based, is full of fashion that is the standard of today's Japan.

I feel that I don't want to get too close to such fashion signs.

I'm just a designer and a production person.

But if you go out into the streets and you see something that's being released in progress in a store and you think, "I like this dress." you're putting yourself in the consumer's shoes in a bad way.

If you do so, you will be affected by it.

The KLASICA clothes are not my clothes, but the clothes made by someone looking at them and feeling them.

I hate that, so I want to keep a proper distance from the big trend of fashion.

This is something I have cherished since I started the shop, but I make it to bring out KLASICA in what I make.

I don't know exactly what it is, but I try to make things that don't sound like something.

When I started remaking, I was thinking, "Let's just do something that no other dressmaker can think of," but even now, the fundamentals haven't changed.