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Naoki Takizawa: A man with a spirit for transformation
(JP/Niken Prathivi)When he entered the retail business, Naoki Takizawa, design director of Japanese high-street utilitarian fashion brand Uniqlo, was faced with a real challenge â the quantity
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(JP/Niken Prathivi) (JP/Niken Prathivi)
(JP/Niken Prathivi)When he entered the retail business, Naoki Takizawa, design director of Japanese high-street utilitarian fashion brand Uniqlo, was faced with a real challenge ' the quantity.
'It's amazing. One design is copied into 100 million pieces,' said the fashion designer, who is also a long time protégé of the brilliant Japanese designer, Issey Miyake.
Prior to his work with Uniqlo, Takizawa was the man of Miyake for about 27 years. He was also the creative director for Helmut Lang in 2010.
The Tokyo native initially saw high-fashion, limited and exclusive items the main DNA of the fashion industry.
A major change, however, occurred when he began his journey with Uniqlo nearly three years ago.
'When I became independent after Issey Miyake, I needed to move onto a different stage. Uniqlo is more a retail business,' he said. 'When I met [Uniqlo's founder and chairman] Mr. [Tadashi] Yanai, he totally changed my point of view.'
At the start of Takizawa's meeting with Yanai, the Uniqlo big man believed that he could design good clothes for many people in the world.
The similarity between Issey Miyake and Uniqlo is that both incorporated technology within their fashion products, he said.
'If I have to name the strongest point in a fashion product from Japan, it would have to be the fabric, especially the functional fabric ' we have the best label in the world,' he said.
Takizawa had also designed curtains for the Quai Branly Museum in Paris at the suggestion of Jean Nouvel in 2006. He also received in 1999 the New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie Award) for costume design for the show, Eidos Telos, which had been directed by William Forsythe at the Frankfurt Ballet in 1995.
He noted that, interestingly, the Japanese did not have a history of possessing 150-year-old materials, for example.
'Yet, we can change, transform ' make it into something with a different value. It is an interesting, unique point,' he says.
'We've been enjoying products like Walkman from Sony, or hybrid cars from Toyota. Those are the ideas that come from the Japanese people ' action and ideas fused together.'
He said that Miyake was the same, he believed, in technology.
'So, it was a natural thing for me [to come to Uniqlo],' explained the Kuwasawa Design School graduate, who was awarded the Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight in the Order of Arts and Literature) at the Quai Branly Museum.
What differentiates Uniqlo from other labels, Takizawa says, is its 'made for all' tagline.
For the man who was born in 1960, inspiration can come from anyone. Therefore, he does not pick names while he's designing for Uniqlo.
'A person who wears Uniqlo is someone who can mix-match it with other fashion brands. If he or she wears cashmere as an innerwear, for example, that person can mix it with Chanel or other brands [as outerwear].
'Anyone can wear Uniqlo, be they people who know the trend or those who don't. Whether a 3-year-old child, or a 19-year-old uncle,' Takizawa says.
Nevertheless, he stays hungry in aiming for perfection in his products.
'In the years ahead, we hope that our products will be lighter and easier to wear. Therefore, we are looking forward to receiving feedback from our customers after wearing Uniqlo's products. Any specific request from a customer would be a great challenge for us.'
With ups and downs in his career, the artisan mentions Miyake as someone who created today's Takizawa.
'He taught me many, many things ' from fabric to cutting and designing. I also learned a lot from other designers around Issey,' he says.
'From Issey, I learned the meaning of a design, a brand. He also gave me opportunities; for example, going to India to make a cloth using Indian fabric and then going to Milan to create menswear. This was very important for me to learn about fundamental construction.'
He was also sent to New York to learn what marketing, branding and merchandising were.
'Finally, he sent me to Paris. There, I learned about beauty, elegance, fantasy and art,' says Takizawa, who now likes to fly for a quick getaway to Paris, meeting friends to help him relax.
Back in 2007, he had his own line ' Naoki Takizawa. But his hectic schedule meant that Takizawa, who is also a part-time professor at the School of Culture, Media and Society at Waseda University in Japan, decided to cancel his own label and focus on Uniqlo along with some of his haute couture work.
As a project professor, he also has his works displayed at the intermediatheque department at the University of Tokyo's University Museum.
With his understanding of the basic dos and don'ts in the fashion industry, Takizawa reveals that the business solely depends on how smoothly the management handles things.
'If your style becomes trendy in a particular country and you have good management, your fashion line will grow. A good designer must walk together with good management. Like Issey and me. If a designer has a good manager, he or she is very lucky.'
Living and breathing designs, Takizawa admits that he never gets bored with his routine.
'Designing is my life and work; I even do it on Sundays. For a regular business guy, the working hours are nine to five. But as a designer, I can get an idea in the shower or when I'm having dinner,' he laughed. 'I don't know when I will be inspired, so I have to be ready 24 hours a day.'
