What kind of music have you been listening to?

I started with punk rock, and began listening to 80s music. After moving to Tokyo, I became interested in techno music and going to clubs. I love music because 70s punk, 90s techno and other musical movements have the power to be the defining element of the times. That is why I listened to and explored all kinds of music in depth regardless of their genre, until eventually starting to organize events and act as a DJ in Tokyo. This experience rapidly broadened my circle of friends, including some who have now gone on to launch a fashion brand and become part of the Tokyo collection, or set up a boutique stocking a selected range of brands. In recent years, I am working increasingly with friends from those days, which is a great fun in itself.

What did you do after finishing the graphic design school?

While still at the graphic design school, I started doing internship with the design department of a record company.  My work was to deliver miscellaneous things to design offices including Positron, which handled a lot of design jobs for the kind of music I liked.  After graduation, I ended up working for Positron.  In those days, I worked at the office on weekdays, and did my own projects on weekends, such as designing T-shirts and event flyers for my friends and organizing club events.  After five years at Positron, I set up RALPH with my former classmate Koji Wagatsuma.

Your individuality becomes even more important when you set up your own business.  When do you think you have established your own design direction?

My design direction was quite firm even in the early days.  In the early 2000s, when phrases like ‘New Rave’ and ‘Electro’ were not widely spread yet in Japan, I was already organizing music events for these genres and creating associated artworks.  That was the time when New Wave culture was beginning to establish connection with fashion.  The fact that I lived through those days had a major impact.  Music inspires me.  Like in punk music, I love deconstructing existing concepts and re-creating them into something new.  That is what I want to reflect to my visual creations as well.

You have also organized exhibitions and published a collection of your work.  How do you balance these activities with your regular work?

My regular work is mostly commissioned.  I present my existing work and other images for reference, and gain client’s go-ahead before proceeding.  Artworks I create independently do not require this process, allowing me to embody something I had never seen before or something that I feel is novel.  What I create this way could become a reference material for future jobs.  When I held an exhibition in Berlin the other day, someone saw my Instagram posts showing the exhibition, and later asked me to do some work for a fashion magazine.  I love such extension of human connections, and enjoy creating artworks in an environment outside my regular work routine.  This is why I try to set some time aside at least once or twice a year for independent productions.

Is there any project you want to take on in the future?

The Berlin exhibition I have just mentioned presented my artworks in a three-dimensional installation format, printing artworks on sheets of film and hanging them from the ceiling in a way that makes them overlap for 3D effect.  I plan to bring the exhibition to Tokyo at around the end of this year.  Also, I have been involved in producing music videos, which has inspired me to do more video work for movies and TV commercials.  I am getting more and more jobs from overseas musicians, and want to broaden my work in the fashion field to do more international as well as domestic projects.