From Ayumi Nakamura to the Grateful Dead.

Congratulations on your 10th anniversary.

Hirotaka Tanaka ("Tanaka")Thank you very much. I wasn't that aware of it myself. I am about to end 2017 without having come up with anything commemorative.

You have had very little exposure in the media so far.

TanakaI guess it would have been better if she were a blonde with a high nose, but she is just an ordinary Japanese. I also thought that it would be better for the brand to be somewhat mysterious, especially now that social networking sites are so popular and everything is so naked. However, I was going too deep underground. In short, I was pushed by the staff to let people know a little bit about the brand.

The brand name itself is mysterious.

Tanaka: I get asked this a lot, but it really doesn't make sense. Costco, Texaco, Petco...to put a "CO" on the butt, following the lead of successful American companies. It should not be funny for English speakers to hear. And keep it to a number of characters that won't be a burden to type in the address. After rearranging the various options for this theme, "PUEBCO" was the one that seemed to fit.

I see that the company you referred to is in the United States.

TanakaI'm 44 years old this year, and when I was a child of this generation, foreign countries = America. I got into skateboarding in junior high school and got a model of legendary skateboarder Mark Gonzalez. If I had kept it instead of throwing it away, I could have sold it for a good price. It was a shame. I also attended "Stormy" classes in Sendagaya, so I couldn't spend money on clothes. I soon found out that the stone-washed jeans that were raging in my hometown of Nishi-Kasai were not acceptable in Sendagaya.

He spent his high school years on his motorcycle, working part-time to pay for the double whammy of his mortgage and accident reimbursement. After graduation, a senior invited him to work at an apparel company where he was dabbling in the world of music. It was here that he opened his eyes to the world of music. His first hit was Neil Young. The first CD I bought was Ayumi Nakamura's "Wings of a Broken Angel," and it was a shock to me. The Grateful Dead were the band I was most fascinated with. I still have a printed T-shirt that I treasure to this day. I am not a collector, but this one is special. This is how my love for America grew.

How did you get into the industry?

TanakaI had a senior colleague who had an uncle who was the president of an interior design company. He probably wanted to make him his successor. When he was asked to work for us, he said, "Well, let me go to America. I'd like to take him with me. That was me. What I learned from my 11 months in California was that in a world where you know no one, if you don't make your own move, nothing will happen.

Since the company had a laissez-faire attitude, I learned sales and design by watching and learning. It must have been seven or eight years after I joined the company. I came up with the idea of creating a catalog. Until then, catalogs in the industry were little more than flyers and did not convey the quality of the product at all. The sales people at the time were always saying, "If you see the actual product, you will understand. I didn't have the budget, so I took the photos myself. I stayed at the company for 50 days and even listened to the bell ringing in the corner of the store while taking pictures. The reason I didn't run away was that the company had high expectations of me. The president said to me, "You are the one who made this industry aware of the importance of catalogs.

Even now, it is the president who is the first to deliver the printed catalogs. Did you eat, brush your teeth, or go to bed? ...... While the adults around us were always saying the same thing, the president was different. I had a lot of fun with him and learned a lot from him.

Cute, not cool.

The first product of "Puebco" is a bird object.

TanakaI was inspired when I saw a souvenir of a bird wearing glasses and playing guitar at a tourist attraction in the United States. I thought it would be interesting to have an object with a taxidermy-like finish at a reasonable price point. It took us about a year to commercialize the product.

The business was exclusively with clothing stores. Although it is not unusual nowadays, the apparel industry was unchartered territory for interior designers. I did not want to put my foot in the sand of my former company, but I was confident that I would do well.

Over the course of two and a half years, I was able to wholesale to all 20 of the companies on my list. I was able to develop my sales skills in my twenties, and I even had a customer who had turned me down eleven times buy from me on the twelfth attempt. We started with birds and candles, and then gradually expanded our lineup.

Once again, what is Puebco?

TanakaI have been struggling to express the mature look of these women from overseas. I am struggling to express the mature and stylish look of women from overseas.

The seemingly funny bird objects are made of real feathers, which is very appealing to men.

Tanaka: What is important is the texture. Recently, I have been thinking more and more about materials. When I look for materials based on form, I sometimes have to make compromises, and this used to cause me stress.

The amount of recycled and reused materials is also eye-catching. It is said to reach 70% of the total.

TanakaNew: parachute fabric bags and tent fabric aprons. These are disposed of by the Indian military. Like plastics, the old ones have an overwhelming sense of presence. Even if the durability is inferior, it is hard to resist its charm.

Speaking of plastic, so is this basket.

Tanaka: Yeah. This is exactly the kind of basket that existed in the Showa period. They used to be colored yellow-green, pink, and other garish colors, but now they are monotone. If you trace the roots back to the Showa period, they are cheap, but the impression has changed drastically.

Puebco" has items here and there that would surely not be commercialized if they were discussed in a serious conference room, and they have been brilliantly brushed up to blend in with a sophisticated lifestyle.

TanakaWe believe that doing things that the big companies don't do will eventually lead to the individuality and strength of the brand.

The cycle of new releases is also interesting. It is not divided by season, is it?

Tanaka: Countless prototypes are being worked on at the same time, but more than half are dropped. We release only those that we are satisfied with, so they are inevitably irregular.

And the price is very reasonable.

TanakaThe industry has to pass that onto the price because the lots are so large. That is where wisdom and action come in.

The ideas are so varied. Will they ever die out?

TanakaI travel to at least 10 countries a year. In addition to visiting flea markets, I also have meetings with factories and wholesalers, so there is no shortage of opportunities for input.

I see that your products are also sold in stores overseas.

TanakaYes, I have been to about 30 countries. Now we are in about 30 countries. Exports now account for more than half of our sales.

Ten years have passed and it is getting deeper and deeper.

TanakaI have been making things from the viewpoint of wanting to please the customers, not what the customers want. I have been making things from the perspective of making customers happy, not what they want. I have never wavered from this viewpoint.