HIROMICHI OCHIAI | Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week TOKYO

The FACETASM brand has been growing steadily since its debut in 2007 and has become increasingly popular. The clothes made by the Tokyo-born-and-bred designer, Hiromichi Ochiai, exhibit a unique sensibility, perspective, and experiences, and portray the Tokyo of today in a very realistic manner.
With regards to the brand name “FACETASM,” Mr. Ochiai explains how we coined the term from the French word ‘facet’ which is defined as one of the flat polished surfaces of a gemstone such as a diamond, and using it to mean “various faces” and “various perspectives.” We asked Mr. Ochiai what he wants to express through FACETASM, how he perfects his craft, and what he thinks about fashion in Tokyo today.

You opened a limited shop at THE CONTEMPORARY FIX (TCF), a select shop in Aoyama, from March 18 to April 1. According to the owner, Yuichi Yoshii, this had been planned from last year, but because of the huge earthquake that occurred one week before the opening date, the reception party that was planned on the first day was cancelled. However, the limited shop itself was opened as planned to raise money for charity. How do you feel now that the limited shop period is over?

Ochiai: I think I was able to make this happen because of the strong support I received from everyone at TCF. During the limited shop period, the positive attitude of the staff and the heartfelt service that they provided to the customers helped me greatly. This was my third time holding a limited shop at TCF, but despite the fact that the number of customers that came on the first day was the lowest we’ve had so far, apparently our sales were up by 150% compared to the previous limited shop period. I was happy that my designer friends, such as Mr. Osumi of PHENOMENON, Mr. Yokoyama and Mr. Araki of SASQUATCHfabrix., and Mr. Ganryu of GANRYU, visited the store, and I felt that we were all united in our goal of “gathering here and helping out.” This year’s limited shop period was hastily turned into a charity event, in which 10% of proceeds (5% TCF, 5% FACETASM) were donated to the disaster-stricken areas, but I don’t feel that this was anything special; it was just the right thing to do. I’m sure that other brands would have done the same if they had also had events going on at the time of the disaster.

You had some interesting projects going on during the event, where you installed life-size photo panels of 25 models that you’d recruited from the general public in front of the store, and distributed reduced-size panels in the store. How did you decide upon this?

Ochiai: I’ve always been fortunate to be able to work with people I like for the Look photo shoots. The first shoot was supervised by Chikashi Suzuki, who works on the French magazine “Purple Fashion Magazine,” etc, and the second shoot was supervised by the stylist Michiko Kitamura. This project was produced by Mr. Yoshii of TCF, and was decided upon after consulting with all the staff members of TCF. Ryota Yamada was our stylist, Takae Kamikawa was our hair and makeup artist, and Naoki Ikehata was our photographer, and they dressed, made-up and photographed all 25 models in just one day. The method of presenting the models as panels was very innovative, and I feel that it was a good experience for me to move our brand forward.

The 25 models all differed in age, gender, and body shape – what criteria did you use in the selection process?

Ochiai: We selected the models along with the TCF staff members. We wanted to choose people with positive attitudes, and so we put a lot of emphasis on the comments that they provided, such as their application motive. I think that the people who were chosen were those that had a presence or some sort of unique quality, rather than people who looked like they would wear the brand well. In fact, we ended up with a group of people with strong individuality.
For this event, we did not make a large announcement, and we recruited models through media such as twitter, but we had ended up with over 70 applicants. Some of our actual models were from the quake-hit prefecture of Fukushima, who came all the way to TCF for the event. The first day of the event was just a few days after the earthquake, and there were many stores in Aoyama that were closed or shortened their business hours to save electricity. The area around TCF was dark, but only TCF was brightly lit up, and the sight of the panels of energetic models in the store was very uplifting.

The life-size panels of the models were lined up in front of THE CONTEMPORARY FIX during the limited shop period.
	Inside the store were miniature versions of the panels…
Collaboration items with PHENOMENON were also on sale.