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Interview: Seth Footring
Photography: Sebastian Petrovski
Assistant: Rey
Models: Dew & Riya @ PRM
F/CE is a Japanese brand that I discovered in Parco in Tokyo, which is itself a great store if you’re ever in that particular part of that particular megapolis. They focus on clothes for real life, with a city or a place inspiring each collection. We sat down with Satoshi and Asami, who run F/CE to discuss their approach to making clothes. Thanks to Iain for hooking this up.
SF: Just to start with could you explain a little bit the idea of FC/E?
Asami Yamane: We use functional materials like for example lightweight waterproof or water repellents and we put that in designs to be used to outdoors. We take inspiration visits to another country where we go to one city for one season. We have things that we pick up from the one country like music, culture or people and we create the designs from that. This is combined with the outdoors and technical inspiration to combine for more like a fashion inspiration.
SF: Nice! Can you tell me where you're going for the next season
Asami Yamane: SS25? We are going to Manchester!
Satoshi Yamane: We love the UK so much. I love the music and the football too, so for Manchester we get a really good feeling about the city’s sport and music like northern soul and the style from the city.
SF: Is there anywhere that you really love that you've been before? Like a favourite place?
Satoshi Yamane: We'd be one time to Cuba and we stayed for two or three weeks that was amazing. No signal, no Wi Fi because it was like ten years ago. I used to play music in punk and hardcore bands when I was a teenager so I used to like Che Guevara so it was really cool to go there.
Now we can have Google to research everything for us but when I was a teenager I really enjoyed digging for vinyl without the internet or an iPhone. You could only get information by being in the scene and from hardcore cultures like in New York, UK or Finland. I liked the culture so then I visited the country to make some friends. For the brand we follow the same way and I sometimes still really don't trust information from websites but when I've been in the country I feel like I can have the real experience and that's really important that we pick up the real inspiration. I guess that must be really different to how other designers work.
AY: We wear test everything that we create, so we take FC/E pieces with us when we go on trips and I might think ‘oh this pocket is not good here, or I can't fit this in a pocket’ so they're testing the protypes.
SF: You have done some collaborations in the past, are there any others coming up?
SY: Coming for the next collaboration we have Umbro because we'll be in Manchester. We saw the photo of the Manchester hooligans, they have a look that feels to us like punk and hardcore.
SF: Sounds cool, what kind of music are you guys in to at the moment?
SY: I'm listening to everything, when I was a teenager I played in bands but I also started getting in to post rock and now I play post rock music. I love from everything from a jazz and techno, but I also love the Manchester sounds like Joy Division, Stone Roses. The UK is one of my great inspirations for music and here it is the local culture. Japan always follows international culture and the UK has great music scene.
AY: I like Radiohead. When they played in Japan I met Thom Yorke in Harajuku in Tokyo and I was fan girling.
SF: Iain - what is your relationship with F/CE?
Iain Granger: So I met Satoshi at the show room. We have some both really good mutual friends with Martin and William from Eye C. We both come from punk and hardcore. First time I went to the F/CE offices, it's all glass in the front and there was a big misfits poster and I thought to myself you’re in the right place. I'm working with the guys on bringing new stores and collaborations the early stages of doing that sort of thing and hanging out basically.
SF: Do you each have like a favourite piece from FC/E?
Asami Yamane: My favourite piece would be any down jackets and any of the pieces that have a fashion direction to them.
SY: In the beginning of the brand we just sought out to make a down jacket and a backpack.
It started because I know the CEO of Nanga and we have a drink sometimes, in that time Nanga only made sleeping bags and I really was interested in visiting the factory.
I wanted to see the sewing process to make the sleeping bags. When I did the factory visit they were sewing jackets for Rocky Mountain Featherbed but just the parts, the front or the sleeve.
Sewing a sleeping bag is really difficult due to their construction and structure so the machinists used to practice on the jackets. I said to them okay, I want to make a jacket with you and then my friend said “yeah lets try it!” I'm the first customer in the world to fully make a down jacket with Nanga maybe!
So when we started FC/E we had an idea for our signature outerwear. We have an ally in them so that's why our favourite item is a down jacket and for me it's backpacks as well.
In the beginning I had an idea for Cordura fabric because I'm a big fan of it, this was before it was so widely known. Now it's in the market everywhere and it's really normal but back then I knew how to design looks for Cordura, so we gave them some ideas and they thought it was really interesting. We introduced them in the Asia region so now we have the relationship to them, so they'll give us exclusive fabrics just for FCE.
End.