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mikkadehachikai

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Posts posted by mikkadehachikai

  1. Unfortunately, you do not follow the company thoroughly.  This is for the store in Hamamatsu, which if you had visited, you would know how small and insignificantly small is.  They held similar events held in all of their shops for their new collection/project whatever you prefer to call it. They started doing this type of roadshows with their FW 18/19 collection and the only difference between the above announcement and announcement for previous season is that there are no pictures of new products in the new announcements. I was responding to a Kiya's post claiming that he is the only one outside the FH company enlightened to the new project/collection. 

  2. I did not say I had seen it. But that they, the FH, have presented a winter collection (at several public events at their stores in Japan in July and in August. These events were open to anyone). I pretty much doubt that you are the only outside of their company to have seen their new ideas. 

  3. I believe the talk of FH demise is a bit premature. They have already presented a winter collection, so they believe they could handle the situation.

    They need to restructure and hopefully they would convince their creditors about their plan.  As with many Japanese companies - what the founder says or does - is the only way that is considered correct, is never questioned and is followed blindly. This has led to the beginning of their demise. Lacking a person with understanding of business at the day-to-day management did not help either.  

    But the article pinpoints correctly what I found to be an issue with them - too many shops, too many sub brands and too many clothing items. I would add - very late to online commerce, very late with digital marketing and what really gets me is way too many brand logos on their outerwear and tops. Sales outside of Japan would have never been anything of significance. 

    Last year, I was at their Sendai store and when I opened the door, I felt that I might be their only customer for the week. It felt so desolated. I have rarely seen people at the Daikanyama store. Three times possible. Compared with PJB, Jelado, UES or Warehouse, FH stores always felt empty. 

    Without FH, amekaji and ametora scene would be really poor and really boring and the attention to the detail from FH and the quality of their products FH is unparalleled. I have never understood the complaint about how their shirts fit - they fit me like a glove, but this is very individual. Last winter Uniqlo and IH had identical ombre flannel shirts and you can see their owner showing the shirt cloth patterns at shirt factories and others (e.g. Jelado) rarely offer anything different so losing Flat Head is like losing the only brave and willing to experiment company on the scene. 

     

  4. On 2017/11/30 at 4:11 AM, kiya said:

    We've learned throughout the years that there is not a single Japanese store that puts the care into the product pages which stores outside of Japan do.  It's not even close..

    The photos and information on Japanese sites are generally just copy/pasted from the brands' line sheets while (some) stores outside of Japan shoot great photos, offer extensive spec lists with info, measurements, etc.. The stores outside of Japan almost have to do this, if you can't beat em on price you beat em every other way.

    I will bite. Show me any shop aside the 2nd and possibly Samurai compared to which your product description and pictures and measurements are better, more informative and more conductive to a purchase? And 2nd might be soon out of fashion with the developments over the FH homepage and their push into online sales. Still, the old RJB page had everything - pictures and descriptions.  

    Do not misunderstand me, Japan might be slow to warm and understand new trends but once the wheel gets rolling they try to do as best as possible. 10 years ago, I was in the Bratislava city center using some city sponsored free wi-fi network to do some work lamenting the fact that there is almost no where a free wi-fi network in Japan. Then come the tourist interest in/onslaught on Japan and things start changing. Now with selfie stick yielding talking over the free public wi-fi with some folks back home type of tourists are everywhere in Japan and you almost wish that the wi-fi gets charged to reduce public nuisance.  

  5. Speaking of 2nd, how about lack of measurements for FH products and most of Samurai's and their refusal to measure anything if you are between sizes or know that sizes change between two seasons. 

  6. Some good developments I have noticed recently. I have pleaded with several of their sales staff at various stores and with Kobayashi's son that they need to have an online shop and measurements and inventory management software to keep with the times and make it easier for customer to purchase their goods and at the moment the FH are updating their website allowing for some products to be purchased online, others to be reserved and sent to specific stores. So some progress. Not because of me, but I guess they also might be struggling with sales or so......More than else measurements are what interests me at the moment.

  7. On 2017/10/9 at 11:22 PM, ColonelAngus said:

    A lot of their stuff reminds me of some of IH's stuff, like the 107 and 129. They have a knack for getting those cool vintage looking fabrics that I find appealing. Their flannels are definitely on my radar.

    Given how poor the IH colorways have been until recently and how IH are yet to produce any colorway or style that has not been produced previously by a competitor, I would rather not hold IH as a standard. Majority of the UES colorways are unique to them. 

  8. I am afraid you might be right. Their shops feel very empty at the moment in terms of products, e.g. no chinos, and clients compared when I first visited them. Last time in their new, or latest in Tokyo, store in Jingumae/Harajuku I finally encountered a purchasing client, two in fact - one from Taiwan and one Japanese, for the first time in several years. Their flea market events are becoming more frequent and they have started offloading unsold goods at ameichi store on Auctions Yahoo JP. So business might not be good. Kobayashi's son is sometimes in store, but I doubt that the young would and could turn the ship. 

  9. I would say that garments from the club label are cleaner, with a more contemporary cut, but feel cheaper and somewhat not belonging to the whole company's line. Not that are bad when but when you have some of the shirts woven from exotic fabrics in the shop, it is strange to try on CL garments. I was told by one of their clerks that all fabrics for CL line are not custom made, while those for main lines such as FH and RJB are specifically made for them.

  10. In my mind, UES shirts, and products in general, are among the best ones coming out from Japan and are largely underappreciated. Flannels and shirts in general are slim fitting and one should look at their chest measurements so that sometimes I am a 3, sometimes I am a 4 or very rarely a 2. Being slim, shirts are not forgiving if you have any belly.

  11. Not all small Japanese companies are family run and operated enterprises. Short-term "trainee" program where foreigners mainly from SE Asia come to Japan supposedly to be trained how to do basic things like farming, sewing, brick layering and so on the Japanese way for two year for which they are supposed to be paid some meager monthly stipend. In reality, they are being exploited by being worked by their "trainers" for a very low salary. There was a video of one of IH suppliers at one of this denim websites where the sewing was done by such trainees. Given the labor shortage nationwide and especially in the country side, I would venture to say that a great deal of these clothes are made at sweatshops, albeit Japanese ones. 

  12. 5 hours ago, Cold Summer said:

    Along with Iron Heart, Flat Head is very much motorcycle-style influenced, although that's probably not real obvious from the stuff that gets brought to the west, for the most part. Real McCoys and John Lofgren also have a lot of motorcycle style stuff. I saw that side of things a whole lot in Japan, it's very prominent in magazines like Lightning, Daytona Bros, and Clutch, and it's fairly prevalent from bloggers in the west like the Vintage Engineer Boots dude. I think this style looks great in most cases, but it's not really "me."

    I assume that you were referring to that rather than the vintage blue collar style, of which probably two dozen examples could be named if I really sat down and though about it, including John Lofgren, Rising Sun, TCB, Ooe, Mister Freedom, Stevenson, Roy, Real McCoys, Sugar Cane, etc. That's not to say that these brands don't make awesome stuff, but it doesn't really interest or suit me and it's probably the prevailing style on most denim forums.

    still cannot understand whether you have really ever seen Japanese motorcyclists, not those in the magazines. So, if I were to be into wearing leather jackets around the city which style and Japanese brand won't me look like a Japanese motorcyclists?

  13. 21 hours ago, Cold Summer said:

    Although another important part for me is that I've drifted away from wanting to look like a Japanese motorcyclist or anachronistic 1930s blue-collar worker. 

    I keep reading this from you and I keep wondering which brands do you have in mind. Aside from Iron Heart, from the bigger ones from Tokyo, there is no other brand that fits this description in my mind. 

     

    21 hours ago, anklspr said:

    From 2010: http://www.styleforum.net/t/192335/kiya-babzani-of-self-edge-on-japanese-denim-internet-forums-and-more

    Styleforum: Two-part question for you. You obviously work with some very small companies, and you do a of collaborations with them. How much do you think Self Edge has done for the growth of those companies by exposing them to the North American and European markets? Second, how vital was/is internet forums to this growth, both of the brands and of Self Edge? And I guess that brings up a third part--do you ever worry that internet hype will come back to bite you in the ass? 
    Kiya: I wish the answer wasn't as sad as it sounds. But the reality of it is that these companies were hot in Asia for about 10 years, and that period ended in the mid to late 90s, so when we came along and said "we want to sell your products to the rest of the world," we didn't increase their overall production, we just prevented it from going down. I've said this before, but many of these companies (and not just the ones carried at Self Edge) are on the brink of closing up shop for good due to financial troubles. I know for a fact that if it weren't for the numbers we move, a couple of companies we deal with would no longer exist today, and that's also true for labels we don't carry which were picked up by other stores outside of Japan. I won't deny that message boards had a lot to do with the brand growth, because in the end having a thread dedicated to one brand and having consumers go back and forth about the brand is a great way to get the name and product out there, this isn't a secret.

    I wonder which brands and what "facts" Kiya had in mind.

  14. This could be deleted but I would put it anyway. Several years ago, one of the suppliers of the famed IH was a small company in South Japan where Chinese nationals on trainee visas, i.e. one where you are supposed to train to do activity but in reality you work at rates lower than official minimum wage since the law allows of it, were employed. Haraki never take a stance on the Alexander Leather debacle as well, and I believe some older models are listed on his Rakuten homepage. So there goes the ethics in the "made in Japan" label. 

    And do not start me on Subaru

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