In a world where new clothing appears every day, there are garments that remain in someone's wardrobe.
Pieces that can be worn again and again, remaining in production for a long time.
Since its inception, Graphpaper has been committed to the importance of such classics.
They may not look radically innovative, but there is a genuine reason they become essential wardrobe items.
This autumn, Creative Director Takayuki Minami sits down with us to talk about two new fabrics recently added to Graphpaper's BASIC lineup.
Interview & Text by Rui Konno
―At the Autumn & Winter exhibition, you said something like, "Graphpaper has added more standard items," and I was hoping to hear more about that today.
Yes, let's discuss that.
―This one stood out to me. At first, I instinctively thought it was corduroy when I picked it up…
It's actually a knitted fabric. It looks completely like corduroy, but it stretches like a cut-and-sew jersey with great range of motion. Casual, but clean in appearance and easy to move in. I'd always wanted to make a matching set or pair of trousers like that, so years ago I tried creating a fabric. But that one was a smooth cut-and-sew, and I wanted something more suited to autumn and winter. Since I personally love corduroy, I thought why not aim for that kind of expression?
―Did the development go smoothly?
Not at all. I made it once, didn't like it, and tried again. Then I made a sample and decided against that too. We repeated that many times until we finally reached something that felt truly interesting.
―Until I touched it, I was convinced it was corduroy. Is this achieved through a knit structure that creates the ridged texture?
Exactly. A mill that specialises in sportswear had a kind of experimental swatch. I saw it and I was like, "What is this?" I wondered if I could make the surface fluffy like corduroy without sacrificing the mobility and functionality of cut&sew. But every time we tried, it kept looking like pure synthetic sportswear. Bringing something that has a slight sports-nuance over to what we do here is an approach that I use quite often.
―So it does contain synthetic fiber?
Yes. It's a cotton-polyester blend.
―Yet with these wide, classic wales, it doesn't feel sporty at all. It almost has the atmosphere of something you'd find at Brisbane Moss.
Right. I like those traditional fabrics too, but they tend to be stiff and heavy. That's their charm, of course. But I'm always thinking, can we evolve those qualities into something more comfortable to wear? Something that looks like corduroy, but once you touch it there's a surprise - flip it over and the back side is jersey. It became a fabric with a very unusual character.
―With traditional corduroy from a well-established brand like the one I mentioned, a loose silhouette would fall very differently.
Exactly. Ordinary corduroy has structure, so it can look rigid. Whether woven or knitted — Japanese mills are incredibly dedicated. I'm always grateful for that.
JACKET : Soft Knit Corduroy Jacket
PANTS : Soft Knit Corduroy Chef Pants
―So this fabric has now become a new standard.
Yes. Its appearance says "Autumn & Winter," but functionally, it can easily cross into spring and summer.
―And the other new standard is this flannel fabric, right?
Right. Earlier I mentioned the cut&sew fabric we used to do, and the idea began with thinking, what if we turned that into wool? I really love this fabric.
―It feels familiar somehow - have you used this before?
Actually, last mid-season I made it on a whim. I wanted to wear it myself, so I said "Let's make a shirt and pants in this fabric," and we tried it. Turns out the response was great. Last winter, I basically lived in a matching set made from this, then layered either a coat or a down jacket over the top. That was my whole wardrobe rotation. So we decided to make it a standard material. Then someone said, "Shouldn't there be a blouson in this too?" And here it is - fully realized for this season.
―So now there are more options for matching sets?
That's right. The stand collar protects your neck and keeps you warm. Personally, I'll probably do the same as always and throw a coat over this. My styling never changes (laughs). There's also a new color this season. Before it was just grey and black - now we added this brown.
―It's not just brown, or camel though - it's an interesting tone.
That's because the yarn is heathered. Recently I've been into brown…Though when winter arrives I'll probably end up wearing black again (laughs).
―But if you think about it, this is also a derivative of cut&sew, so does that mean it looks like flannel but isn't?
Right. Construction-wise, it's jersey. Wool jersey. And flannel is woven - this is knitted.
―The corduroy-like fabric felt fresh, but this one is also completely convincing as flannel, and could appear in more classical tailoring contexts.
Exactly. Graphpaper silhouettes are often relaxed, so a fabric with this kind of drape works well. It's incredibly warm - many days I just wore the shirt alone without a jacket. And if it got cold, I'd add a coat or scarf - that was enough. I wore it for a full season and never felt weighed down. It was truly comfortable. We released it in the stores and it did very well - I realized others loved it as much as I did.
BLOUSON : Wool Smooth Flannel Track Blouson
―Does the fact that it's wool mean it's warmer than it appears?
Absolutely. And it doesn't itch, has great fluidity, and is simply easy to wear, pairing well with other items.
―Does Graphpaper intentionally set out to create a new standard every season?
Not at all. Sometimes material development progresses well and something joins the lineup within a year, but other times it takes five. Rarely, we might move something from the collection side into the standard lineup. Usually we start from an idea of what we want to make, develop the material, and if it reaches that level, we launch it as a standard.
―How do you decide when something becomes a standard?
When I feel, "It's good like this so why not do it again next season." If something bothers me when I wear it, or when I see someone wearing it, I try to fix it immediately. But sometimes there's a moment where you think, "This item is just right. It's complete."
―That feels like a kind of destination of manufacturing. Looking at the fashion industry these days, it seems like there are quite a few circumstances where business needs force new creations rather than a necessity for change.
Somehow, that lacks purity for me. Of course feelings and trends shift - that's valid but a standard must not be boring - it must express something essential about the brand. I always say we aim for "interesting normality," but in fact that's surprisingly difficult. The answer often lies in incremental refinements only experience can reveal. And ultimately, the people who resonate with those details choose the product.
―So for you, the growth of standards is a positive thing.
To start with, I never wanted to make anything other than standard items. We do themes and new creations on the collection side - that's fun and involves different creative approaches, but it's a smaller portion of the overall development cycle. It's been 10 years since I started the brand, and I've been constantly updating our products, so of course some things get discontinued and others come back. I make adjustments to the specifications and release them when they're better. I guess it's a similar way of thinking to Apple products.
―So that's how you separate your collections from the rest.
Since the collections are made based on a seasonal theme, the materials and colors are in principle meant to be complete within that season, but the shapes themselves are often quite basic, so even if we call them collections, I think they can be worn for a long time. So there's almost no so-called "trendiness" to them. I don't really know what the world at large sees as a standard, but we make things with the idea of "this is what counts as a standard for us." I think each person has their own idea of what a standard is.
―I understand that very well, but when it comes to fashion as "dress" or "styling," it feels like standards can sometimes be at odds with it.
Hmm I wonder. I think our standards can be easily combined with more playful clothes too. But when I look around, everyone is changing things every season, and I always think, "They're really working hard." Those brands are in the high-fashion cycle. Graphpaper is in that space as well to some extent, but in my case I think of our garments more as the "clothing" part of food–clothing–shelter.
―As a daily-use wardrobe, in other words.
Exactly. The kind of clothing that arises out of necessity. I've never had any intention of "making something revolutionary." From the very beginning, my feeling was similar to making a cup or a chair.
―But even with cups, there are those that are easy to use and don't get boring, and others you never really grow attached to.
That's right. And if you ask what makes the difference, ultimately it's subjective. Fundamentally, I've been doing this based on my own subjectivity, but after ten years I feel like the subjectivity of the customers who have continued to like our brand has been added to that, and things have become more multifaceted.
―Still, in fashion as a business, people are supposed to keep buying new things. Isn't there a dilemma that if the number of standards that can be worn for a long time increases, it gives people less reason to buy something new?
But clothes wear out over time, don't they? There are of course people who think of that as a nice kind of ageing, but I imagine that there are also people who want to wear the exact same thing again in a fresh, clean state and feel like they want a new one. And this is something I say all the time, but personally I have a hard time trusting people who are always wearing completely different clothes. I don't mean that in a negative sense, it's just that I want to offer pieces, at a proper level of quality and price, for people who have a clear style and say, "I've always wanted something like this, but it just didn't exist until now."
―That's a very straightforward way of thinking.
I think so. I've personally always liked fine-gauge crew-neck knits and have bought an absurd number from different brands over the years, but from other people's perspective I'm sure it just looks like I'm always in the same, predictable outfits with no novelty at all (laughs). You might even wonder whether someone like that should really be working in fashion.
―(Laughs) But as you keep doing that, you become more consciously aware of "what makes a good knit, and what makes one not so good," right?
Exactly. On the flip side, if we tried to cut corners with clothes like ours, they'd only end up mediocre. In a world where the cost of all kinds of things is rising, I explore which elements might be "not really essential at the core." But standards are often sewn continuously by the same people, at the same factory. For example, rather than sewing just one or two pieces, if a factory is sewing 1,000 or 2,000 of the same thing, their technique and quality both naturally rise. That might be where the value of standards really lies.
―That's a meaning of "standard" that only a maker can really see.
If you look at it from an industrial standpoint, the reality in Japan now is that small factories are disappearing one after another. Within a situation that isn't so good for manufacturing, as the side that asks for things to be made, we want to place orders in a volume that can form a foundation for them to continue as a business. I feel like that is part of the reason why we should keep going.
―So standards are things that each of the parties involved - makers, the production sites, and the people who actually wear the clothes - all have their reasons for.
There are a lot of people who want "something new," and I think it's fine to leave that to other brands. But for example, when someone thinks, "For now I just want a matching set, so I'll go look for one," I'd like Graphpaper to be one of the options that comes to mind - "Come to think of it, Graphpaper has been making those consistently, hasn't it?"