Atsuro Tayama is a Japanese designer who has a shop in The Landmark, and is regarded as highly talented by those who know a thing or two about fashion, a slick community within which I no longer include myself because, until about a fortnight ago, I thought that Atsuro Tayama was a woman. (Don't ask. Something to do with the delicacy of his vision thing.) Even when the PR rang up and said he was coming over to open another shop in The Lee Gardens, I couldn't adjust to this sudden change in perception, and right up until the moment we met I still expected that Tayama would turn out to be female.
But no. There was nothing overtly feminine about the man in the black suit who was waiting, except perhaps his hair, which is parted down the middle and hangs in two bobbed curtains on either side of his face like early photographs of Yoko Ono. I have to say that I had plenty of opportunity to study the texture of Tayama's hair because of the seating arrangement for the interview: the interpreter, the designer and I sat in a row in the middle of the shop as if we were waiting for a passing bullet train.
Tayama stared straight ahead of him most of the time, slowly chewing gum, and I did my best to peer perceptively through the thicket (shiny, occasional flecks of grey, definitely healthy) which separated us.
It was a pretty sobering interview. At one point, I asked him if fashion was fun and, after some to-ing and fro-ing, the interpreter replied: 'Fashion is his career so he cannot say that it is really fun, it is too costly. He has the pressure of opening the shop like this in Hong Kong and he has to make a turnover of sales.' As that day's papers were full of the self-immolation of the Stock Exchange, this was indeed going to be a problem. Does he sleep? 'He does not sleep well. From the outside the designer always looks happy. But actually they are not. Actually, his career is to give happiness to the customer. The designer is not the one to receive happy times.' Tayama, though you might be forgiven for thinking otherwise, is only 42. He was born in Kyusu, in southern Japan, and studied fashion in Toyko where, at 19, he won a Pierre Cardin Award and a short trip to Paris. When he returned to Japan, he went to work for the almost-unknown Yohji Yamamoto. Four years later, on the strength of that brief Parisian sojourn, the increasingly famous Yamamoto asked him to move to France to develop his growing market there. Tayama has lived in Paris ever since.
In 1982, he showed his own first collection. As Yamamoto is a partner of Tayama's company in Japan, it's evident that the parting of the ways was highly amicable. Indeed, according to Tayama, the entire Japanese designer network is based on a master-pupil system, much in the spirit of samurais passing on useful tips concerning the impending onslaught which is the fashion circus. I'd asked what was the most important lesson Yamamoto had taught him and the squashing response was that Mr Tayama was always asked this question in interviews, and the answer was 'working together'. The interpreter went on: 'That is why younger designers like to join famous companies in Japan, in order for themselves to be famous in the next wave.' Tayama is currently surfing a retail wave of US$500 million (HK$3,857 million) through his five separate lines, which include a men's wear range entitled Boycott. I couldn't help wondering if something vital had been lost in the essential grasp of what that word generally means, and asked why it had been chosen. The interpreter explained that it was exceptionally difficult to find a name in English which hadn't already been registered worldwide but 'boycott' was still available (understandably enough, you may feel) and Tayama-san had snapped it up. But isn't there a problem with concept? The interpreter began to murmur, whereupon Tayama (who had been apparently engrossed in the antics of two air-conditioning men scampering in and out of the ceiling above him) swivelled his head of hair and with a perfect, minty-breathed smile said in English: 'No. Nobody boycotts.' Was his head-to-toe black ensemble Boycott, by any chance? 'Yes,' he replied. 'Very comfortable.' He cheered up a little after this exchange. He was evidently tired - he spends his life in transit between Paris and Tokyo - and just needed to be jollied along, although he is never going to be the type who fills a silence with the babble of useless information. Or even useful - it was only when I was doing some barrel-scraping and asking him about his homes' decor (confusingly enough, the Paris apartment is furnished from The Conran Shop in London while the Tokyo house is full of Western antiques) that he made a passing reference to his family. It transpires that he has a wife and two girls, aged 8 and 10, in Paris. 'He is not a gay!' cried his interpreter, smothering her laughter behind her hand while Tayama, with sidelong glances, gave vent to several chuckles. 'Even though all his friends are gay!' Three months ago, Tayama opened his first shop in New York. Women's Wear Daily quoted him then as saying 'I've done everything I've ever wanted or needed to do in Japan. I would like to expand my horizons' and added that he was studying the buying habits of New Yorkers. He came to the conclusion that they weren't so different from those of shoppers in Tokyo or London and that the world's cities are significantly similar. 'The target people in every city are the same, and he is interested in New York not the USA, London not Britain and, you may say, not the whole of China but Hong Kong,' explained the interpreter. 'He dreams to make progress and only work with excellent people.' Tayama-san nodded thoughtfully and resumed his contemplation of the racks of lovely clothes he had designed. What was he thinking? 'He looks at them and thinks they are not so good, he sees the bad points. And you see the video over there of the spring/summer collection in Paris? He looks at that, to do a review of it, and he is a little bit fed-up of it already.'