Jean pull
SOME THINGS JUST aren't good enough for 44-year-old designer Hidehiko Yamane.
Take the deep-blue Evisu denims he's been making since 1991. They've achieved near-cult status among the likes of David Beckham, Madonna, Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, and local lights such as Faye Wong and Andy Lau Tak-wah. But Yamane only started making them because he couldn't find a pair of jeans he liked.
A trained tailor, Yamane's passion for vintage jeans and his disappointment with the mass-produced versions led him to design his own. 'I used to work at a clothing shop,' he says. 'And I started to realise that the jeans I was wearing weren't the same as the ones we were selling. The stitches on the side that used to be there were gone on mine, and then they started to lose colour. I wanted to make my own jeans with uneven colours and stiffness. It was just something I really wanted to make.'
But it wasn't just jeans. There was fishing and golf, as well. 'I've been playing golf for more than 10 years now, and I was quite good from the start,' he says. 'I also love fishing. I couldn't find the tools I was looking for. They wouldn't sell me what I wanted. So, I decided to make my own - like I did with jeans.'
More than a decade later, and despite Evisu's success, Yamane remains true to his philosophy: attention to detail and a devotion to quality. 'When I try to start something new, I don't think about whether I can make a profit from it,' he says. 'It's about whether I want to do it or not. For example, I don't like to use something I'm dissatisfied with. I know that the new style golf clubs are good. But whether they're good or not doesn't matter to me. I'd like a bit of style added to it. If my creations are better than the high-tech stuff, that makes me feel really good.
'All I'm doing is making things I like,' Yamane says. 'I was just lucky. Normally you can't succeed in a business just by making things you like.'
But succeed he has. In 1994, Yamane expanded Evisu into Europe by collaborating with Hong Kong-based events organiser Peter Caplowe. Through a company called Bestford, Caplowe distributes Evisu products outside Japan. Yamane maintains final approval of all the merchandise.