Postcards from Japan
* Inside the Mind of Asia’s Next Great Designer
with Malcolm Thomas
Last January at the Hotel Normandy I was romanced by fabrics; roses in hair and Old Hollywood elegance as I stood at attention at Taakk’s Fall/Winter 2020 show. When others were showing spiked grunge or renting out stadiums, Takuya Morikawa was giving me up close and personal. A Paris hotel lobby may be grand but technical craftsmanship is sex. I had run into Morikawa’s work once before in New York as a part of New York Men’s Day. A sampling of oftentimes theatric presentations of young designers trying to tap into the market. Something I would soon take for granted.
By July I was working on my parents’ couch and like their peers, designers were struggling to put out their Spring/Summer offerings without a live audience. Unposted was Taakk’s contribution to the first-ever digital Paris Fashion Week lineup.
Takuya Morikawa, 2021
A story between Keiju Furuya and Evangeline Young of long-distance love. Loving narration sprinkled over digital flower prints and cumberbund suiting. Inspired by late surrealist, René Magritte, the collection “Destroying the Common Illusion” was precisely what we needed and still need. Whimsy.
It was also perhaps the first time I was allowed to see the inside of Morikawa’s creative mind without the static of PR headsets and clicking cameras. A vision uninterrupted. So, I asked the designer in a time so unprecedented, to show me in words and images what his day looks like, the hobbies he has collected, and how the city of Tokyo has influenced the start of his new year.
.designer talk
Takuya Morikawa
speaks with
Malcolm Thomas
first published in:
issue 30, 01/2021
HOW HE BEGINS HIS DAY
Old school Japanese calisthenics. It’s important to keep your body limber when you sit at a desk all day.
HOW HE ENDS HIS DAY
With a nice glass of sake.
WHERE HE GOES TO FIND PEACE
I go to the local shrine nearby in Meguro and after that, I take a stroll with my wife at the park.
WHERE HE FEELS MOST AT PEACE
Right here in my home/atelier.
HOW TOKYO INFLUENCES HIS WORK
I actually find Tokyo to be a bit monotonous, so I wanted to design clothes that stood out against the local landscape.
HIS EARLIEST MEMORY OF BEAUTY
In the northern prefecture of Iwate, where my grandmother lives. She lives at the foot of the mountains where she keeps cows as well. The quiet serenity of the country along with the flowers she grew in her backyard, to this day has a lasting impression on me.
WHAT ELSE HE WOULD YOU LIKE TO PURSUE
I was trying to make the perfect roast beef. But my wife ended up making one better, so I passed the baton to her. But honestly, I would like to pursue just living a normal life. To eat and drink good food with good friends again.
HIS FAVORITE PART OF WORKING ON THE “DESTROYING THE COMMON ILLUSION” SPRING/SUMMER 2021 COLLECTION
The tuck-in jacket. It’s a tailored jacket that starts as wool suiting and the fabric transitions to cotton shirting as you go down, allowing you to tuck-in the jacket. It’s something most people don’t think of, subverting certain expectations of what clothes can be.
WHAT HE’S CURRENTLY WORKING ON
TAAKK Spring/Summer 2022
HIS GOALS FOR THE NEW YEAR
To find an audience globally who is interested in the ideas we have. Along with that, just continuing to make interesting and well-made clothes.
HIS FAVORITE MEMORY OF 2020
Presenting our Spring/Summer 2021 collection to an international audience at Paris Fashion Week. It was surreal.
WHAT HE FINDS MOST BEAUTIFUL IN 2021
Being able to see the people I love.
credit images (c) Takuya Morikawa