BRENDA WEISCHER: I have heard so much about your headquarters here in Harajuku. I also know that you grew up on the outskirts of Tokyo and moved to the city to study, so I always imagined that most of the ethos of Undercover is attached to this city or urban life in general. But your colleague just mentioned that you also have a design studio in the countryside! It’s funny to me: Tokyo is the quietest city I’ve ever been to. It’s day ten, and I have not heard a single car honk or anyone screaming; everyone is so polite here.
JUN TAKAHASHI: We also have crazy people in Japan [laughs], but mostly at night.
BW: So, you go to the countryside to design sometimes. And then you bring it back to your design team here?
JT: The design team is only three people, and I am one of them. I am involved in everything.
BW: That’s rare these days! I feel like the merchandising team comes first for some brands. “We need five t-shirts, we need four jeans,” and then comes the creative director. It’s pretty unromantic.
JT: I also have to talk to merchandisers, it’s not always romantic.
BW: You launched Undercover when you were still a student. I would like to know what that means. You launched a full collection? Or what did you start with?
JT: I started with a t-shirt. With silk screening. I sewed everything myself. It was all very small when I started. I did my first show after four years. It was a decent collection.
BW: Was there any kind of business plan? Did you know whether you wanted Undercover to be a wholesale brand or direct-to-consumer? Who did you sell to at the beginning?
JT: Wholesale was only to people that I knew in the beginning, and I had a store called Nowhere to sell my things. [Nowhere was a store by Jun Takahashi and Nigo that they opened together in 1993, which played a very important role in the rise of Japanese streetwear culture.
BW: Did anyone tell you how to price things?
JT: No one told me. No one taught me about pricing at university. I tried to look at my material and production cost and take it from there.
BW: Sadly, it’s still the same at most fashion schools. There is no business plan.
JT: Yes, Japanese fashion colleges are mostly good for people who want to work at brands and other companies, not for running their own businesses. There is no perfect school for both. It’s difficult to organize a company, especially the financial side of it. At the start, I was just asking people who I knew had their own businesses. I was also asking how to hire people.
BW: Yes, you have to be prepared to wear many different hats, and sometimes the creative part is only very small—which I think a lot of people tend to underestimate. Managing people, motivating a team, teaching them, inspiring them, being a mentor. While you are also still figuring things out.
JT: And it’s a lot of accounting!
BW: Undercover has very close ties to music. You said somewhere that music and fashion used to have a much tighter connection, and I didn’t get your point at first. I thought, there is so much fashion in music and vice versa. But you meant that back when you started your brand, you used to be able to identify what music someone listened to by their outfit. Tribe signifiers. And it’s true that this has almost completely been diluted. You can see someone in the street in baggy Balenciaga and it doesn’t mean they listen to techno.
JT: It changed a lot. I would say that people who bought Undercover from the very beginning definitely listened to the same music that I listen to. But these days, my customers are also big rappers, and I don’t listen to a lot of rap. So, things have mixed. But I don’t see anything negative about it.
BW: And did your personal taste in music change over the years from when you started?
JT: A lot. I listen to many genres now; I didn’t used to. There was a point when I got really into techno. But now I can’t even name any genres because there are so many. I like to look at people on the street, with their headphones on, and imagine what they’re listening to.
BW: I read a few of your past interviews where you were asked a question that is pretty rude in my opinion. Asking a creative person if they’re afraid to ever run out of ideas. But I want to ask about your way of working as a creative person. Do your ideas come from the habit of creating or do you believe in creating only when a good idea comes to you?
JT: Yes, I don’t think it’s possible for me to run out of ideas. I design things along with the way I live. Feelings. Things I am interested in. I do not wait for an idea to come around.
