Eiichiro Homma of Nanamica

Alright folks, it's me, it's Jeremy Kirkland. You're listening to Blamo. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad I'm here.

What a week. What a week. Fun stuff happening this week actually. Your boys in LA doing some work, eating some food, all the things that one does when

duty calls. But I am missing Market Week in New York with some folks, you know. There's always fun stuff happening in New York Market Week. Just a quick explainer, because I'm sure someone's like, well, it's Market Week.

It's when a lot of the brands are showing their collections, and it's when stores that are buying things for their other stores or buyers, whatever. That's the big local show, local New York show of people out there. It's a bad explainer, but it's just because I shot it straight from the dome without

even really thinking about it. Yeah, you know I like to just kind of riff on these intros, but you know, it is hot. It's so hot outside. While I'm recording this, I came inside.

I'm so sweaty. I had to practically de-clothe. It was not ideal. I think I'm going to be saying this for a long time as this whole blue marble keeps

heating up. So, you know, I can only run now after like eight o'clock. You know, I don't know if any of you are doing the outdoor running thing. I'm still trying to do it even though I'm slow. But, um, yeah, I mean, I'm not going to get up at four a.m. to run like some, some of these, you know, hardcore folks, but I go running at night and I keep scaring or

getting scared by the deer in my neighborhood. You know, I got a bunch of deer and obviously It's like fawn season and obviously right and they're like yo, dude, we're trying to eat and I'm like hey man I'm just listening to bad brains. So we compromise on crossing the street. It's just we got to figure out me and me and these Deer we got to coexist

Big pod this week the return of Ichiro Homa the founder of Nanamika She's just one of my favorite brands of all time Nanamika is well. It's an anamika It's also North Face Purple Label, which is the Japanese exclusive.

It's just so good. Ichiro-san is probably one of my favorite designers, and he is the reason, well, he's one of the core reasons

we're all going big fits these days. We really tried to dig in on this episode because believe it or not, it's the second time he's on. He came on early on during the pandemic.

We did one of those remote pods and now we got some good stuff, but man, when you get stuff in person, feels good. But it was an absolute honor to have him back on the pod.

We talk what's happening with Nanamika, big fit origins, personal style, why he thinks Gorp is cooked, which I agree, the golden age of clothing design and life on a boat.

It's in there. I'm here, you're here, let's go. How old is Nanamika? This is actually 24th fiscal year.

Okay, so 20, yeah. Yeah, but first fiscal year, We had only three weeks just to register and finish. That's why in the reality, this is the 20th third.

Financial rep will say 24th, but in the reality, 20th third. Okay. But obviously, Nonomica wasn't your first role or career in anything. Yeah.

After graduating university, I joined the company Goldwyn, which is a sportswear manufacturer and a power company in Japan. It was back to 1982. Yeah.

I mean, you've been doing this for a long time. Until 2001, I was involved by outdoor sports divisions, where North Face, Harry Hansen, at that time, Philson as well.

Yeah, they were licensed. Building was licensed before, but they acquired trademarked live sports in Japan. That's why right now they are brand holder

for Japanese market. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, those shops for listeners, you know, there and I'll say this because many times I talk about how incredible Japan

is on the show, but the retail experience of not just the Goldman brand, but also, I mean, more importantly, Inamica. So last time I was there as in April, went to the Dikeyama shop and for listeners, it's this beautiful, it looks like kind of a little tiny house. Yes.

And I mean, the product obviously is amazing, but there's the design, the space between the items. I mean, and I'm curious about some of these things, how it's merchandised so well, but it's also merchandised in a way that it doesn't feel like you can't touch it.

And so I'm curious before we get too deep here, with Nanamica, the brand and the store. deliberate was it to make the place feel welcoming yet also look, you know, perfect without without even touching it. Actually, we are not the big company like, you know, jacquero kind of, you know,

size. So we don't have any very typical visual match and durs. However, in the beginning of the the planning of the merchandise, even before design work. We made a plan for first, for instance, monthly package, something like in case of spring summer, generally package, February package, March package, etc.

So initially, that's kind of idea for the monthly merchandise brands, all shared by the old store associate and the store manager as well. And since we think each store is not the same, that should be the same because we are kind of family.

I mean, each person must be different. Although in the fundamental sense of value, we should share, but I think we should allow each person, each store, something private character like a brother and sister or family. That's why design of store is all different.

And some case, choice of style number, choice of the color might be slightly different. That's its kind of localization or the personalization to each stores. That's why there are some freedom of the presentation through the stores. Although design of store is conducted by myself.

But when they allocate a monthly package of the merchant rights into the store, store manager has almost 100% rights to coordinate everything in the stores. Maybe younger sales associates may help them. Wow.

Yeah. Out of curiosity, why would you do that in the sense... Like an American brand would say, well, we can't do that because everything has to look the same because the, you know, I'm going to air quote this, the brand experience has

to be the same.