Here in Tokyo

Although the purpose of my trip is to see Rei Kawakubo, as well Junya Watanabe and Tao Kurihara, for a piece in the Times Magazine, I paid a visit yesterday to Jun Takahashi of Under Cover. Takahashi has been friendly with Kawakubo for a number of years, since he began writing her letters and she replied. Not surprisingly, Kawakubo is a big supporter of Takahashi’s, as is Rei’s husband Adrian Joffe. How many designers of his generation think conceptually, without following the earlier generation of design mavericks?

I was especially eager to see Jun’s studio, which from the outside looks as if a giant corrugated sea container had been suspended in a neighborhood of lanes and small houses. I was greeted by Yuka Nakamura, from his press office, and we went down a couple of flights of stairs, lined with stuff and bicycles, and found Jun in a large loft-like room where the spreading limbs of a tree trunk occupy one corner. It would be an amazing place to think and work.

There were three desks with Macs along one wall, a bank of d.j. equipment at the other end, and in the center was a long white, glass-topped table with partitions lined in silver glitter paper. Jun, who had on a black leather jacket and jeans, is somewhat shy but very friendly and conversational.

We talked for awhile about Kawakubo and Comme des Garcons, and when I mentioned how much I liked his winter collection, for its clarity, he smiled and said he thought maybe his work was becoming recognizable.

He spoke about the difficulties of satisfying his own desire to make interesting things and keeping up with the six-month cycle of the fashion shows, and said he sometimes thinks about focusing on his stores (he has 30 in Japan) and skipping the Paris collections altogether. I said I hope he doesn’t stop showing in Paris but that I understood his desire to break a pattern. I don’t think he’s really decided anything but at least he has the freedom (and courage) to question what he’s doing—and why.

I asked Jun what he thought of the luxury-goods companies in Europe. He seemed to regard them as something very far away and unrelated. But it’s hard to ignore their presence in Tokyo, from Armani and Dior to Louis Vuitton and Prada. A couple of people told me that many of the big spenders are now from China and Korea. I’ve only been out and about for two days, but I’d describe the look among young women as approval-seeking, post-Chloe. It’s not startling, in other words.

After I left Jun’s studio, I walked over to the Under Cover shop. The last time I was there, maybe three years ago, the windows were filled with stacks and stacks of folded clothes, almost as if someone was saying, “Don’t look at me, don’t come in.” Jun now changes the décor of the store about every six months.


I loved the way he did the displays—like, three wooden school chairs turned over with a glass table top resting on them. He sells some vintage Under Cover pieces downstairs. I saw a heavy felt jacket from his wonderful show at the Grand Hotel a few seasons ago, and a pair of jeans from around 1999. Across the front, if I saw correctly, were printed the reversed letters S-K-C-O-T-T-U-B. Man, I laughed: So many ways to turn your perspective upside down.