Yo Shitara: Continuing to Broadcast New Culture from "BEAMS"

I attended schools affiliated with Tokyo University of Education (now University of Tsukuba) from elementary through high school, and my classmates were almost all oriented toward national universities. Since I was a bit of a playboy who loved soccer and bands, I wanted to go to a university with a free and open-minded school spirit.

Despite how I look, I was born in 1951 and am now 71 years old (laughs). I woke up to foreign films in middle and high school, and watching family dramas and Disney made me long for the freedom of America. In terms of universities, it wasn't Harvard or Cambridge, but UCLA. I felt a similar vibe at Keio. However, it was the tail end of the student movement back then, and classes were constantly cancelled. My student life consisted of going to Shonan when it was sunny and hanging out at mahjong parlors when it rained. I'm surprised I managed to graduate.

On the other hand, at university, I joined the Advertising Society and did things like running a camp store in Hayama during the summer. There, I became friends with the children of officers from the US military camp in Yokosuka, and I first encountered American culture at a bazaar held at the camp. Green lawns, white houses, GE refrigerators, American cars, large dogs, basketball courts. Back when the word "sneakers" didn't even exist, they were wearing cool basketball shoes I'd never seen before. It was shocking. I wanted them too, but there were no stores selling them at the time. That intense longing led to BEAMS.

Through my enthusiastic activities in the Advertising Society and the tennis club, my circle of friends grew considerably. I had a longing for the world of creation, so I joined Dentsu after graduation. When I thought about where someone like me, who is "a mile wide and an inch deep," could demonstrate my strengths, I arrived at the advertising industry. I was good at many things, but not enough to become top-tier in music or sports. So, to pass the entrance exam, I cut off contact with my friends for two months and studied the world of mass media intensely by reading five newspapers every day. My short-term concentrated effort paid off, and I managed to join Dentsu.

The predecessor of BEAMS was a cardboard box manufacturing company started by my father. Although business grew during the high-growth period, the oil shock occurred around the time I joined Dentsu. We decided to diversify the business and started clothing retail. My father said something clever then: "Until now, our job was wrapping things. Now, let's do a job that wraps people." My father loved fashion, but he wasn't an expert on clothes, so I suggested we handle the American lifestyle and fashion I admired. We took the "light" (Hikari) from the company name "Shinko" and named it BEAMS.

When we launched BEAMS in 1976, I was still in my first year of working. It was an era when goods and information were scarce, but being at Dentsu allowed me to get various new information. Heiban Shuppan (now Magazine House) was near my workplace in Tsukiji, and one day I happened to run into a friend from my Advertising Society days. BEAMS opened in February '76. "POPEYE" was launched in the summer of that same year, and I was able to get fashion information from him.

Before "POPEYE," there was almost no information about American fashion. I heard from that friend that "athletic shoes called 'Nike' (pronounced Ni-ke) seem to be popular in America," and I went there to look for them. It wasn't until we started selling them in the store that I realized they were pronounced "Nike" (laughs).

Stuffing bags full of sneakers bought in America and bringing them back was the beginning of parallel imports. If there was something I wanted, I would first look for someone who might know about it. I'd run around after hearing, "If it's that, you might find it at a shop called XX in Ameyoko, or maybe Fussa." The joy when I luckily got my hands on something was immense.

While BEAMS is known for fashion today, at the start, it was branded as an "American Life Shop." This was because I wanted to run a store that sold not just clothes, but the American lifestyle itself that I saw in military camps and family dramas. The first BEAMS store was a tiny 6.5-tsubo (approx. 21 sqm) shop in a corner of Harajuku, back when Laforet didn't even exist. From such a place, I thought I would change Japanese youth culture.

That's right. When I started high school, I was happy to change from a buzz cut to an Ivy cut. I couldn't buy an electric guitar, but my band members and I matched in London-stripe button-downs, cotton pants, and coin loafers. We are exactly the generation that learned about America from VAN and Coca-Cola. I am very easily influenced; when Woodstock happened during my gap year, I changed to long hair and bell-bottoms.

Once, I had the chance to see a UCLA dormitory. It was a small room, but everyone decorated it with basketball uniforms, guitars, and records as they pleased, and there were various lifestyles there. At Venice Beach, people were roller skating in shorts and tank tops, and I thought, "This is America!" I was working hard to bring this free and open lifestyle to Japan.

The first BEAMS store was exactly like a UCLA dormitory. We put jeans, sneakers, and T-shirts in a limited space and went to buy more every time they sold. The stance of wanting to sell life and culture is the axis of BEAMS that hasn't changed since the 6.5-tsubo days.

My home is in Shinjuku, but there were major department stores there, and there was no room for small capital to open a shop. In comparison, Harajuku at the time still had alleys and small private houses. Omotesando is now a mecca for super brands, but I think the fact that street culture continues to be born from that place is largely due to the absence of department stores.

I truly think I've lived through an interesting era. I reached the 60s during my sensitive adolescence, and as we entered the 70s, "daytime culture" began to emerge. Until then, customs and culture were things born at night in discos and restaurants in Akasaka, Roppongi, and Shinjuku.

In the 70s, the Vietnam War and student movements ended, and young people began to enjoy skateboarding and surfing. Music changed from soul and jazz to the California sound, and I felt a bright summer light shining on the world. I suppose the reason I opened the first store in Harajuku was because I felt the wind of those times.

In the era when the number of stores was limited, it was enough to reach a limited number of people, and we could create edgy shops. Once you exceed a certain scale and deal with the masses, some parts get diluted. What must not be forgotten then is to properly keep items that show a particular commitment. Now, BEAMS has over 160 stores including overseas, but we have nine stores with different characters just along Meiji-dori in Harajuku. While expanding the base of BEAMS, it's necessary to show a different world to highly sensitive people as well. I think the secret to lasting so long was simultaneously creating stores to prevent obsolescence.

BEAMS started by broadcasting the US West Coast lifestyle, but within two years, the trend had already shifted to East Coast preppy culture, and we established BEAMS F. After that, we started International Gallery BEAMS, which handles European fashion, and the women's brand Ray BEAMS. New attempts in response to world movements were always spontaneous.

We also have "Kodomo BEAMS" for children's clothing. The trigger was a proposal from staff who had become the parenting generation. However, when I proposed a children's clothing line 30 years ago when my child was born, everyone was strongly opposed. The same goes for golf wear. The generation that started golf 20 years after me is now saying, "Let's definitely do it." Even though they rejected my opinion 20 years ago (laughs). It's common for the president's opinion not to pass, but that is proof that BEAMS is connected to our real lives.

Since 2014, we have serialized the book "BEAMS AT HOME," which introduces the lifestyles and interiors of our employees, and have already published six volumes. It's a catalog that doesn't feature clothes, so to speak, unique to BEAMS which sells lifestyles. About 750 employees have appeared. It has been well-received and has surpassed a total of 300,000 copies.

I myself am a person with a strong commitment to "things" (mono). Previously, we said "from things to experiences" (koto), but since 2000, it's been "from experiences to people" (hito). We put our own enjoyment at the center. I want the future BEAMS to be a "Happy Life Solution Community." We aim to be a group that creates bright and fun social phenomena, a brand that people want to join.

BEAMS is neither a super brand nor fast fashion. It's in the middle, so to speak. Among the countless middle-ground options, what's important is branding that makes people think BEAMS is good.

This is the same for the internet. If the brand name doesn't come to mind, people won't even look at the website. In such an era, I thought of a "community brand." This is also the origin of BEAMS, where one owner gathered things they liked in a small shop. A select shop can be a "ten-item store" (ju-kkaten) where people who like what you like gather. Now that the company has grown large, if there are 100 people, there are 100 versions of BEAMS. Each employee broadcasts, "People who like this, gather here."

What I always tell employees is that future competitors are not fellow traders but influencers. They create brands using their own hobbies and sell things they've bought themselves, and each has fans. If that person's fans increase to 50,000 or 100,000, they become our competitors. To counter that, we must become a group of influencers.

Yes. The pandemic was an unexpected event, but measures centered on people from before then supported us. Of course, the entire industry took a hit, but things will never go back to the way they were. I believe that things that would have happened several years later were brought forward.

The only good thing about COVID was realizing that previous business thinking wouldn't work and being able to reform our consciousness with a sense of speed. The shift to e-commerce started before COVID, but we also pushed forward with DX and have begun exploring possibilities in VR and NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). We've been doing cross-industry collaborations since the 90s, but about three years ago, under the title "From Cup Noodles to Space," we designed Nissin packaging and clothing for Soichi Noguchi's stay on the International Space Station.

Furthermore, we have started developments looking toward the global market. As domestic store openings settle down and price increases progress, we are looking for ways to expand the community overseas, including BEAMS JAPAN, which broadcasts various charms of Japan. Last year, saying "From GAFA to World Heritage," we collaborated with globally expanding companies and opened limited-time stores on the approaches to Ise Jingu and Zenko-ji.

The slogan "Happy Life Solution Company" was fundamentally based on the desire at the founding of BEAMS to make it a company where employees and people involved with BEAMS become happy. This applies to services and product creation, but even the currently popular activities for SDGs have no meaning if there isn't truly love behind them. I thought a lot and added some twists to permeate my thinking within the company. People laughed at first, but I thought that's exactly where the truth lies.

Looking at street fashion around the world, I think Japan is the most stylish. Tokyo, in particular, is the symbol of Japan. The "Shibu-kaji" (Shibuya Casual) phenomenon that occurred in 1989 was the first unique style created by Japanese streets, which until then had been incorporating things from overseas. Since then, new street cultures like Ura-Hara culture and Kawaii culture have continued to be born from Harajuku. Now, even super brands have started to incorporate street trends. BEAMS is not a long-established store, but having been at the scene of these changes for a long time, I take pride in having contributed a little.

I want them to actually see various worlds. Nowadays, as long as you have the internet, you can get experiences and knowledge close to the real thing without going overseas or seeing the actual objects. Even so, I think what you see through the experience of touching the real thing is different. In fact, big hints can often be found outside the filter bubble.

I have many opportunities to meet people from other industries and am always exposed to trends in various worlds. There are various trends in the music industry, the IT industry, and probably among mom friends and high school girls. New standards are found there.

Interestingly, around the time Shibu-kaji became popular in '89, the intonation of "BEAMS" changed. Until then, the correct pronunciation put the accent on "BE," so I felt uncomfortable with the change at first, but I gradually got used to it. It's similar to how "Cho~" (super) became popular from high school girl slang. But by the time such trends permeate middle-aged people, they are no longer in season for middle and high schoolers. That phenomenon is very close to fashion. When it spreads to the masses, it's "owakon" (dead content), but it has also become a kind of standard.

The difficult part is the timing to withdraw from something that has become widely popular. You can tell what will be popular next by fixed-point observation of highly sensitive people, but identifying "owakon" is truly difficult. It's dangerous when sales data spikes. If you continue to chase an item even when the town is overflowing with similar ones, there's a risk that highly sensitive customers will leave.

Therefore, fixed-point observation of both sensitive people and, conversely, slightly slow people is necessary. You have to know that if that person starts doing it, it's probably almost over. I'm a bit of a trend-follower (mii-haa), so I think I'm on the faster side for this age group, but young employees might be saying, "The president bought it, so we should probably pull back soon" (laughs).