Meeting KAWS and the Drive Towards Apparel

OriginalFake opened in May 2006.
First, let me tell you about the circumstances leading up to its opening.

Around the year 2000, I began intermittently creating figures with an artist named KAWS, who lives in New York.
The very first 1000% BE@RBRICK was also designed by him, and it sold exceptionally well.
Given this history, KAWS himself seemed very drawn to working with Medicom Toy.

Around that time, about three years ago, a store called "Colette meets Comme des Garçons" opened on Kotto-dori in Minami-Aoyama, Tokyo.
There was a project where Lucien Pellat-Finet created knitwear using KAWS's graphics.
It was a very limited run of only 10 pieces, priced around 300,000 yen, but they sold out instantly. When I told KAWS, 'Wow, I wish I could have gotten one,' he replied, 'I only have one myself.'

That incident stayed with me. Around 2005, I casually asked KAWS, 'Are you interested in starting a project other than figures?' and he enthusiastically agreed, saying, 'I'd love to!'
Initially, it was a very simple project, perhaps just making cashmere knitwear. But as we refined the concept, we decided to do it properly. That's how the idea of a store gradually took shape.

The Location Came First

We decided to ask Masamichi Katayama of Wonderwall to handle the interior design. He's an interior designer I consider top-tier, having worked on spaces for A Bathing Ape and Dresscamp, among others. This choice came about through KAWS's introduction.
From the moment Katayama-san and I met, we hit it off. He even offered, 'Akashi-san, since we're doing this, I'll help you find a location.'
So, in the height of summer 2005, we walked around Aoyama with the relevant people, searching for a vacant retail space. And specifically in Minami-Aoyama 3-chome, no less (laughs).
Of course, we couldn't find anything in just a day or two. We continued to receive information periodically, but suitable locations were scarce.

Then, one of our executives learned about a shop becoming available at a hair salon.
The location? Yes, Minami-Aoyama 3-chome!
We immediately consulted with the real estate agent and went to say, 'We want to rent it!' The agent was surprised, saying, 'What? We only heard yesterday that it was becoming available.'

So, the OriginalFake project was a case of 'the location came first' (laughs).

Without a confirmed location, we couldn't set an opening date. And without an opening date, we couldn't decide which season's products to create. That was the situation. KAWS is an artist who values timing, so I didn't want to proceed with graphic production before the opening date was set.
Therefore, we couldn't do much preparatory work until the location was secured.

Once the location was decided, we had only about three months until the opening.
Well, a few of the staff were close to collapsing (laughs).

We truly received help from so many people during that time. Starting with Katayama-san, KAWS was incredibly dedicated, and our apparel team worked tirelessly.

Birth of a Giant, Over 3-Meter Tall Object

In parallel with the store's interior design, we also had to develop store fixtures, equipment, and merchandise.
We completed these within the same three-month window before the planned opening.

One particularly memorable item was a massive Companion object, standing approximately three meters tall. At the time, we were developing a 40cm figure called "Half Companion," and KAWS suggested placing a giant object based on it inside the store.

We had the expertise within our company to create large objects, but our modeling department was already swamped with other projects, so we couldn't halt their work.

While we were pondering what to do, Katayama-san introduced us to a modeling team called Gelchop. They had experience creating objects for various stores.
The process was: our Perfect Studio created the 40cm prototype, Gelchop used that as a basis to build the giant object, KAWS gave it a final check, and then it was assembled and completed. That was the workflow.
We managed to complete all this within three months, alongside other tasks like the 10th-anniversary exhibition. Everyone worked incredibly hard. I'm so grateful to them that I can't even face them – I sleep standing up (laughs).

The concentration of everyone involved during those three months was extraordinary. I went through a lot myself, but it was fun. The less time we have, the more motivated I get (laughs).

[OriginalFake]
Address | 5-3-25 Minami-Aoyama, Oh Bldg. B1F, Tokyo
TEL | 03-3499-3333
URL | http://www.original-fake.com

→ In the next installment, "OriginalFake (2)," we will discuss the new phase that emerged one year after its launch. Please look forward to it!