THINGS I LOVE vol.14

Speaking of Burberry, it is a familiar brand whose trench coats have been loved in Japan for a long time. It is a traditional British brand founded in 1856, but in Japan it has had a licensing agreement with Sanyo Shokai since 1970, and by the 1990s, it was even more popular in Japan than in its home country. Meanwhile, following the huge success of Gucci's rebrand by Tom Ford, Burberry's rebrand began to be rolled out worldwide from around 1999.

Around that time, I was working on magazines such as ``POPEYE'' and ``MEN'S''. I had many opportunities to style Burberry Black Label tie-up pages for magazines such as NON-NO and MR High Fashion. At times, we also created collaborative products. It was developed as a licensed brand by Sanyo Shokai only in Japan, and of course it was a different product than the one sold in the UK, but because the Japanese factories were so good, the quality of products such as the iconic trench coats was comparable to those made in the UK. Around 2001, I made trench coats at a shop in London, and then I had them made to order in Japan, and they both had great finishes and I still use them to this day.

In 1999, Roberto Menichetti was invited to the newly created BURBERRY PRORSUM. He was previously an assistant designer at Jil Sander and was appointed creative director. From what I remember, his creativity received a lot of attention within the industry. However, his free-spirited nature did not seem to fit into company policy, and from 2001, Christopher Bailey, who had previously worked at Tom Ford's Gucci team, took over. I interviewed him on the TV program ``Fashion Tsushin'' during his second Milan collection after he became director. This was our first meeting, but we hit it off right from the start and it was easy to talk to him.

For collection reports from 2000 to 2004, I had the pleasure of interviewing Christopher Bailey in Milan and Hedi Slimane in Paris. However, although Christopher and I were always excited to talk about the Burberry Prorsum collection, the atmosphere changed completely when it came to the Burberry Black Label meeting that was held twice a year in London. By this time, in addition to styling the Burberry Black Label tie-up page, I was also supposed to be doing creative direction for pure advertising, but Christopher, who was usually in a good mood, had become quiet and seemed unmotivated. For me, in order to discuss the direction of the magazine advertisement, I have to show them the clothes I will be photographing and talk to them about. It was a very difficult meeting for me as I was concerned about the quality of the clothes. Christopher had no say in the quality of the clothes. However, he made the same requests each time, such as ``black and white photos'' and ``pages with suits.'' Sanyo Shokai staff did not attend the meetings, and each time I had a meeting with the two of us, accompanied by an interpreter. Although I was happy to be able to meet Christopher in person, each meeting was unsatisfactory and I couldn't help but feel the limits of creativity in the licensing business.

Christopher's Burberry Prorsum has items that he wants to wear every season, and he actually likes wearing them. I wore it alternately with Hedi Slimane's Dior Homme from 2002 to 2005.
One day, when I went to see Christopher at his London showroom, he had folded his trench coat and was sitting on it as a cushion. When I asked her, ``What's wrong?'' she replied, ``I'm making you feel tired like this.'' A tangled trench coat is more unpleasant than wearing it tightly. I was thinking of copying this too.
Christopher used to stay at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. When he came to Japan, I took him out to Hazawa Garden, and I called some friends over and took him to places like Montauk and Casbah in Harajuku. Just TAKEO The director of KIKUCHI was in Japan during the collection period that was being handed over from Takeo Kikuchi to Taishi Shinkuni, so Christopher came to see it as well. I was in charge of styling this show. The venue was Hotel CLASKA, which had just opened. There were quite a few big names in attendance, and the crowd before and after the show was tremendous. After the show, I took Christopher to a Chinese restaurant in Shirokanedai that was a hot topic at the time, but apparently the food wasn't that good that day. It didn't matter, the chef was off. When I explained the situation to Christopher and apologized, I have fond memories of him jokingly replying, ``It's okay. I'm British, so I don't know what it tastes like.''

　

■Tomoki Yuma (@stsukezane）
Born in Kyoto City in 1965. Started his career as an editor in the editorial department of Magazine House ``POPEYE''. Currently, in addition to planning and styling fashion pages for magazines, she also designs advertising costumes for artists and musicians. Before the coronavirus, he covered men's collections in Paris and Milan for over 35 years.

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