| ── First off, I want to make sure about something: will "UNIFORM EXPERIMENT" be officially a new SOPH brand? |
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| Hirofumi Kiyonaga (HK) |
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Head of SOPH.co.,ltd. (HK): I haven’t set out a clear definition of the line yet. (smiles) But it's a new brand, and everything is done by our in-house staff. We included the word 'EXPERIMENT' in the brand's name to signify the style and the concept and the attitude. The format of the entire brand is one of our experiments too. We are carrying out a new experiment - through trial and error. |
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| ── More than aiming to start a new brand, you had the idea to make the line and that developed into the brand? |
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| HK: |
Yes. The spark behind it was a men's suit project with Nike. When I joined the project, Hiroshi-san told me what he thought about the recent suit situation in Japan. And since I have long had my own ideas about suits, the timing and the other factors just came together perfectly for starting a new brand.  |
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| Hiroshi Fujiwara (HF) |
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I think that a specific percentage of customers who buy lots of items by Head Porter, A Bathing Ape and Undercover wear a business suit daily. I thought it would be a good idea if we could supply nice suits for the people like them. That was the first step of our plan, I guess. |
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| ── To sum up, the kids who loved and supported the culture and styles advocated by Hiroshi Fujiwara have now grown up and are wearing suits. So they needed a clothing line that fits an “adult lifestyle,” and you've decided to make the business gear for them. |
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| HF: |
They are people who much prefer casual clothes but have to wear a suit daily, and they don’t have much in the way of options. In a certain sense, people like me ignored this market too. |
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