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Only One Item
16/JAN/2010 on air

It’s highly possible that your style can be exactly the same as someone else, especially if you like to take in fashion trend. But we can solve this problem if we make our own clothes.

Okadaya is the biggest handicraft shop in Japan. Mochizuki-san is a professional jeans craftsman who has celeb customers such as David Beckham or Sheryl Crow. He is an artist of single stitch.

It was at a high-grade denim party held in Canada in 2005 that changed his life. He went out for the party with his wife who was working as a hair makeup artist. He was then wearing his single stitch jeans and Allan Kemp, a Canadian designer liked that. Since then his jeans went so popular in north America. His jeans repeatedly had exposure on fashion magazines before he became a successful artist of jeans. He receives up to 2000 orders per year. He has become a popular craftsman.

He lives in a countryside and his family lead a simple self-sufficient life. But it’s interesting he buries jeans in the earth to let them damaged by bacteria. 2 months in the earth is too much to keep jeans in good condition, though.

Gizmo-chan is not only DJ but also a fashionable girl who has been snapped in Harajuku over 20 times. What makes her so special is her handmade headphones. When she sold some headphones online, all of them sold out on the day. Her headphones are also sold at a 2nd hand clothes store in Harajuku. It’s her small apartment on the loft where she makes these headphones. She picks out materials from over 200 kinds. So far she has created as many as 1000 sets of headphones.

Gizumo-chan customizes Beni-chan’s headphones, and Mochizuki-san does Mr.Ikki’s jeans.

Shinjuku has become a handicraft shopping area?
Okadaya is the oldest one since 1927. Its target is fashion arts students nearby and stylists. Thus they deal with professional oriented materials. ABC Craft is originally from Osaka 4 years ago. It’s target is newbies and high school girls. They have wide variety of accessory parts and deco parts. Yuzawaya used to target housewives in 40s or over and expanded its branch stores outskirt of big city but they changed strategy lately. They appear in a big department store, targeting 20s-30s woking women. They are trying to create the fad of handicraft among young generations. Transforming underwear into a party dress is an attractive sample to young women who just started to learn crafting.

Apart from Shinjuku, Nippori is another battleground state for fabric and small parts for garments or even deco parts.

Gizmo-chan & Beni-chan
They make the pompom and they use gluegun to attach everything so they can avoid using needle and thread.

Mochizuki-san & Mr.Ikki
They use grinder to make the surface of the jeans rough, and put colored cloth from back to strengthen the damaged part.
Then they use a burner to burn brand new studs to give them some texture, and put them on the pocket.

50 years old Fukushi-san is a collector of Louis Vuitton but he collects the bags nobody else would have.
He has spent handsome money for Louis Vuitton that he would have been able to buy a house with. Especially he had a card case designed by the 5th of Louis Vuitton, which is what he is most proud of.

Kirin’s opinion:

No wonder I felt something is going on when I found Yuzawaya in Shinjuku. Yuzawaya used to like to have branch stores off-centered locations so to speak. They are trying to create the fad. I thought so but now I see it clearly. Also now I see why there were more deco goods and rhinestones at ABC Craft than Yuzawaya. It’s true though we can get more rhinestones at reasonable price if we go to Asakusabashi, but I have not had a chance to go there yet. (I can’t believe I have not done it yet since I wanted to do that for a long time!) Asakusabashi is not as close as Shinjuku from my house. I guess that’s the reason…:p I often go to Shibuya – Harajuku – Shinjuku area but rarely do to Ueno, Akihabara or Ginza area, mostly because they are farther from my place. :p

It’s very difficult to have more than 5 hours off a day when I have to work a lot besides I have to take care of Pi-chan. (I try to avoid going out on weekends as much as possible because I don’t like crowds.) Pi-chan vomits if I do not feed her for 7 hours. Meaning, I have to feed her 4 times a day. It’s around 6am, 12pm, 6pm and 11pm to avoid this 7-hour-vomit. (lol) You see this schedule is compatible. Also I have to spare 1.5 hours to walk and groom her somewhere in a day. So…it’s really hard to go out for more than 5 hours or so. My hubby is too busy to take care of her. Sorry, Pi-chan’s topic is not related to this episode…hahahaha^ ^;

Making clothes or bag by oneself is so cool. This is one of the want-to-do lists when I get sick in bed for months or when I’m free from too much work that I have now. But for a moment I am just too busy to start learning how to use sewing machine. I have so many plans that I want to accomplish! XD

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