2013.05.17 Fri

Looking out to the world. A fashion brand from Fukuoka

Are you familiar with the Quantize fashion label and dress brand!?
From Fukuoka designer Nobuko Nakamura and organizer Kiharu Kawano, the brand has been showing every year at the Fukuoka Asia Collection (Faco) since the event’s inception.
http://www.quantize-dressline.com/
I’ve been friends with Nobuko since her university days.
At the time, she was featured in fashion shows such as Shinjuku’s Liquid Room and exhibited Western fashion at the Harajuku Design Festa Gallery Western; for about 15 years, she has exercised her prodigious powers in many different venues.
Being of the same generation, I remember even now how deeply inspired I was
to see her dare to realize her dreams .

I met up with her again, albeit by chance, in Fukuoka,
and I was given the opportunity to assist her in her work starting last year.
The first time I handled her PR was for tights she tattooed with woodblock prints under the Quantize label.

Last year, we held a photo shoot in Berlin, Germany.
Kiharu, the organizer, arranged for four models on-site and photographed them in our new dresses.
We held our installation in front of the Berlin Wall.

We even rode the subway in our performance outfits!
It was a show in its own right!

I also traveled together with them for one week.
On site, together with members of the Fukuoka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, we held another show introducing
our German guests at the Japanese embassy in Berlin.
Our German friends were astonished by the many different dresses we made using woodblock prints.

What’s so great about these ladies is how,
whenever I meet them, they always exude such energy
and always keep on holding onto their dreams–
but they’re not high-strung at all!
“We had our fortunes told and saw we’d have good luck if we went abroad,” they laugh,
and head off for Paris, New York, Berlin…

With an “we want to do something overseas for 2013, too!”, they already have a project on deck.
These designers are spreading their wings from Fukuoka to the world at large.
I find it harder and harder to take my eyes off these two.