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Family style
Next to Tokyo's design goliaths, T.H.D. La Maison
Designer Takumi Hatakeyama and wife Junko Sugata are the Davids
of the scene. But taking on the heavyweights with their casual
chic label has been all fun, the duo tells Martin Webb.
It's just a couple of weeks before the Spring/Summer
2003 Collections are due to start, but T.H.D. La Maison studio
is a picture of calm and order. “We don't get super-busy
before the collections,” Takumi Hatakeyama says. “Thanks
to this person,” he gestures to his wife and business
partner Junko Sugata, “We start and finish work at a
fixed time—there's no messing around.” In the
lead up to the collections many fashion industry people work
up to 20 hours a day, sleeping on the office floor—but
the T.H.D. (Takumi Hatakeyama Design) team is a notable exception.
“We're very unusual I suppose,” he says. “For
myself as a creator, it can be very difficult, but the staff
can always get home in good time and always start bright and
early in the morning.”
It's impossible not to warm to Hatakeyama—seated
behind the current season's samples, next to his wife,
he has a reassuring air of self-confidence. The T.H.D. maestro,
now 41, has all the standard Japanese designer credentials.
A Tokyo Mode Gakuen graduate, and Ministry of International
Trade and Industry Fashion Grand Prize winner, he has also worked
in Paris as a chief assistant designer. Like many of his contemporaries,
his time in the home of fashion served as an awakening. Besides
learning about the demands of a professional atelier, and some
French, Hatakeyama was exposed to the history of fashion—the
most important thing the designer took away from his time in
Paris. “There, I learned the reason for adding darts to
a jacket, or a princess line—I learned that fashion is
essentially about making the body appear beautiful,” he
explains. But his experience at T.H.D., he says, has taught
him to narrow the gap between art object and real clothing and
express himself through wearable clothes. As a small company,
the luxury of creating fabulous outfits just for the shows is
beyond T.H.D.'s means, so what is shown on the catwalk
is what eventually ends up on the shelves. “Despite this,”
he says “the goal is, that in the same way you might see
someone's outfit and say ‘that's Miyake-ish,'
or ‘that's Yamamoto-ish,' people can say ‘that's
Hatakeyama-ish.'”
This entrepreneur's impressive fashion shows—which
often use top overseas models—belie the humble nature
of his business. Despite having no big backer, and with only
a small staff and an atelier to match, T.H.D. has become a
firm favorite at the Tokyo Collections. Now in his ninth year
of showing on the runway, the stout, straight-talking designer
has built a strong following throughout Japan and is in the
process of doing the same through outlets in Taiwan and Hong
Kong. Appealing to essentially conservative women, T.H.D.
has an eccentric edge that offers women the opportunity to
indulge their wild side. Influenced by anti-fashion creators
Moschino and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Hatakeyama is known
for his mismatched skirt and jacket combinations in restrained
but feminine colors and classic cuts that he modernizes with
rough and rugged textures or whimsical shirring. While Paris
provided a solid fashion education, it also introduced the
designer to one of his favorite materials. “Most clothes
are made from fabrics woven from many threads and then cut,”
he explains, “but knits start with just one thread. With
that one thread you can make stripes and patterns, create
textures—the possibilities still fascinate me,”
says the veteran. These details, he says, give his clothes
a solid or three-dimensional feel.
Hatakeyama is very proud of the playful spirit he injects
into his designs. Picking items from the Autumn/Winter 2002/2003
collection off a rail, he beams as he shows off a skirt with
sleeves, a jacket with four lapels and a skirt bearing an
enormous rose print. “Asobi gokoro!” (playful spirit)
he exclaims. His wife Sugata rolls her eyes and sighs—avant-garde
items are difficult to sell, especially in recession-hit Tokyo.
Despite his target market of women aged 25 to 35, the Japanese
capital, and particularly its youth fashion district, Harajuku,
is a great source of inspiration, according to the T.H.D.
creator. His store and office are at opposite ends of Tokyo's
most infamous street-style strip, Cat Street. “It's
a fascinating area,” Hatakeyama says. “Japanese
people are famous for mixing cheap garments with luxury brand
goods, and around here is where you see it most. I suppose
this mixed style means there's a greater chance that
people will buy my clothes,” he concludes. In terms of
research, the T.H.D. boss studies trends emerging from Europe
and the States, but admits that what he sees in Shibuya and
Harajuku is also very important. “I'm getting on
a bit,” he says, “so I need to use my senses to
stay in touch with what's new.” Watching TV helps,
he says, but being based down in Ura-Harajuku is important.
“I can't go back to my 20s,” he adds, “but
I can sure keep my eye on the times.”
Current Tokyo trends certainly seem to have affected T.H.D.'s
designs for next season. For a brand like T.H.D. that changes
dramatically from season to season, keeping the latest look
under wraps is important. But after some gentle persuasion,
Hatakeyama is prepared to reveal his carefully guarded image
for Spring/Summer '03. He announces that he has chosen
to work with the handcrafted look that has been sweeping the
city's fashion scene. According to Sugata, developing
the fabric textures and hand-stitched relief details was a
very time-consuming to process. “I've been working
the team especially hard this time round,” she laughs.
As the clock ticks towards their November 8th show followed
by exhibitions and buyer meetings, the creative couple looks
forward to getting away. Times might be tough for a mini-maison
in Tokyo, but the creative pair that occupies this house are
still having the time of their lives.
T.H.D. La Maison is available at the store listed below and
other department store outlets throughout Japan.
THE Shop, Open 12:00pm - 7:30pm.
4-25-35 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku. Tel: 03-3404-8099.
Photo credit: Courtesy of
T.H.D. La Maison, Martin Webb
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