The Inouye Brothers, a Danish-born fashion brand, look to the creative future.
THE INOUE BROTHERS is a fashion brand created by Danish-born Japanese-American brothers Satoru and Kiyoshi Inoue. They bring alpaca products, a traditional industry of the Andes region located in Peru, South America, to the world. Why are these two Scandinavian natives creatively bringing Peruvian knitwear to the fashion scene? Let's take a closer look at their values and culture, and focus on their creations.
Knit brand brothers who create different cultures from Scandinavia.
How did the brand get started?
satoruI established The Inouye Brothers in 2004 and first went to Bolivia. It took about two years to fix everything from design to production. So I was able to make my first knitwear in 2006. After that, I knew I had to pursue more quality, so I started going to the Andes region of South America in search of higher quality alpacas. Two years later, in 2008, I was able to present my first collection in a Paris showroom. After that, I went to Peru, where I visited for the first time in 2011 and was able to release the collection the following year, so I was able to make it progressively faster.
Amur stickleback (Pungitius sinensis)No, Satoru says it plainly, but it was actually quite hard. After a long flight, it took more than a day by car and on foot. Finally, we arrived at the highlands of the Andes Mountains. There we would show them a rough design and wait for several days until the samples were ready. The nights were cold, so to prevent freezing to death, we put Vaseline around our mouths and wrapped ourselves in warm clothes. The cold was a world I had never experienced even in Scandinavia.
His brother Satoru had a design office in Copenhagen. He still holds the title of art director.
His younger brother Kiyoshi graduated at the top of his class from the Vidal Sassoon Academy, a British beauty school, and is also a stylist and owner of the hair salon Environment in London.
satoruThe Peruvian alpaca has a long history, and the quality of the hair, as well as the manual sewing technique itself, is a cultural asset. There is a local alpaca professor, and the government manages research on alpacas. Alpacas grazed on pasture grow differently depending on their natural environment. Therefore, we cannot provide a stable supply of our products in response to demand, and there is a limit to the number of products we can produce each year. Every time we visit the area, we are told that we will only be able to produce a certain amount this year, so we calculate the number of grams per garment and manage the orders.
Amur stickleback (Pungitius sinensis)We now make royal alpaca, which is the best quality of all alpacas, and vicuña, which is the highest quality hair. We sell alpaca wholesale to select stores such as "BEAMS" and "Tomorrowland" and vicuña to department stores such as "Isetan". However, just because we sold well this year does not necessarily mean we will be able to increase the number of items we deliver next year.
It is a difficult problem to solve in the brand business, but perhaps it is the right way to be, without the waste of resources such as surplus or excess inventory that is currently occurring in the fashion industry.
satoruIf I were to use our business model as an analogy, we are a natural wine producer. In short, it depends on nature. We can't expand our sales even if we wanted to, because everything depends on how much raw material we can harvest, not on progress or delivery deadlines. It is certainly unstable, but we want to convey that traditional culture correctly and express it by converting it into a modern form that is easily accepted by everyone.
Amur stickleback (Pungitius sinensis)When I started my journey in the Andes, I studied alpacas from top to bottom. So, as I pushed through, I met them deep within the local area. It was like a mission once I got to this point.
satoruYes, it is.
By the way, you usually only present alpaca knitwear, but next season you are launching all "pima cotton" garments.
satoruIn the past few years of visiting Peru to make alpaca products, I have always been on the lookout for organic cotton as well. Although I visit Peru for the alpacas, they talk passionately about "pima cotton" as well. So we asked our clients, "What do you think of pima cotton? All of the buyers say, "Pima cotton is lower quality than Supima cotton.
It is true that we often hear of Supima cotton.
satoruYes, so we were skeptical for a while.
Amur stickleback (Pungitius sinensis)A friend I met in London who works in India is an advisor to the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) and a cotton specialist. Even he was enthusiastic about "pima cotton" as well as alpaca in Peru, so I looked up the difference between Supima and Pima in between work. To put it simply, Supima cotton (extra-long staple cotton) is the commercialized version of Pima, and Pima cotton is its original form. In other words, it is an origin.
satoruI learned that pima cotton has its roots in Peru. The history of Peruvian pima cotton goes back as far as the Inca Empire, when royalty wore vicuña, the rich and elite wore alpaca, and ordinary citizens wore cotton. All of these fabrics were made from natural materials from the Andes. We met with these cotton producers, and after a year and a half of work, we were able to produce a sample of the cotton collection that we have just presented.
This natural cotton series has a natural texture, as well as a natural coloring that gives it an overall soft look.
satoruI was able to find naturally grown "natural cotton," which is of a higher quality than organic cotton, in the Pima region. Like wine, there are standards for cotton, such as "organic," "bio-organic," and "natural. The world standard for organic cotton is that no human hands or pesticides should be added to the soil in the fields for three years. But organic takes away the energy of the earth. Bio, on the other hand, returns energy to the earth, so the more you do it, the richer the soil becomes. Natural cotton is the same way. The more you make it, the softer and shinier it becomes. As I mentioned earlier, natural Pima cotton is the ancestor of Supima cotton. It is the creative property of the Incas, who found cotton trees in the jungle and rivers and spun them into material. There were pioneers who lived strongly with the idea of returning to nature, and we are doing this as if we were their successors. This is the collection we worked on with that in mind.
As an expressionist of fashion, I think "The Inouye Brothers" are very smart and cool, including the quality and back story, even though their creations incorporate the natural environment and social aspects. The social mindset that you two have is one of the important things in the future of fashion.
satoruThe social environment, such as recycling, ecology, and sustainability, which are issues we face every day in Denmark, have become keywords all over the world. Fashion must first and foremost be cool, but values are changing rapidly with the times. Coolness is a prerequisite, but as a brand philosophy, we want to creatively design something social.
Amur stickleback (Pungitius sinensis)When it comes to creativity, there are many different cultures, but Danish skate culture is tough and cool. We express what we want to do through fashion, but I think our philosophy and attitude is creative with a social mindset. This thinking is also reflected in the Copenhagen skate brand <Alice (ALIS)The boss of the company, Mr. Albert, told me about it.
Poster created to commemorate the publication of a book by The Inouye Brothers. The artist is "Hiro Kamigaki" (IC4 Design)
Amur stickleback (Pungitius sinensis)The other thing that is very creative right now is food. Cuisine, organic, etc. are social and of good quality. In that sense, art and fashion may be a bit lackluster.
Are there any other places you would recommend in Denmark?
satoruWhen I was out of ideas, I often went to the Louisiana Museum of Art. The art space with classics such as Monet and Gauguin and contemporaries such as Basquiat, Warhol, and Haring was very innovative. The wonderful architecture and furnishings are the essence of Danish design, and it is like a treasure island where you can reaffirm the value of Danish classics. Every time I go there, I feel my soul is reset.
Satoru's family lives in Copenhagen. They are wonderful people full of happy vibes. Family is the most important thing," Satoru always says.
Satoru lives in Copenhagen and Kiyoshi lives in London, in different countries, but they have the same values and are really close brothers.
satoruThe fact that Kiyoshi is in London is very significant. It's a bigger city than Denmark and information is fast. Especially in the salons (beauty salons) you get influencers, rich people, celebrities, everything. All of our deals in Europe started from the brain of Kiyoshi, who is also a hair stylist. In London, the salon is the best network. It's British hair salon culture where you talk through the mirror about things you can't even talk to your family about.
Amur stickleback (Pungitius sinensis)Giving haircuts at salons is one of my motivations. Just the other day, "CUTS," which has led London's hair salon culture since the 1980s, held a photo exhibition in Japan. I think London culture is hot right now, including the skate brand "PALACE. We are both in different countries and see different parts of the world, so our creations are expanding.
Speaking of the breadth of your creations, Satoru, you opened JAH IZAKAYA, a Japanese restaurant in Copenhagen that uses Danish organic ingredients.
It is no exaggeration to say that this is the hippest Japanese restaurant in Copenhagen, created by Satoru and his two Danish partners.JAH IZAKAYA". The menu includes fried chicken, gyoza, edamame, potato salad, and other items familiar to Japanese people.
satoruWhen we were kids, there were no proper Japanese restaurants in Scandinavia where Japanese people cooked. Kaoru-san, a Japanese immigrant from Tokyo, opened a sushi restaurant, "selfishnessWhen I opened "Sushi", I felt that for the first time the right kind of Japanese sushi had come to Denmark. When I had the chance to start my own restaurant two years ago, my family was against it because they thought it would be difficult to run a restaurant, but I was confident that I could do it. I knew I had to serve the right kind of Japanese food, using Danish organic ingredients. Food is a very deep creative culture, but I believe it is no different from the way we make apparel.
Finally, what is the future shape of their creations?
satoruThe Inoue Brothers" for "clothing" and "JAH IZAKAYA" for "food", the next big goal is to create a guesthouse/village/farm that is also connected to "housing". We want to create a place in Spain where we can share and live together. We want to create a place to live where all of our product philosophies can be integrated. We are currently working on it, aiming for about 4 years from now.
Amur stickleback (Pungitius sinensis)We have Japanese faces, but we are EU people inside. We both hope to end our lives in Spain.
satoruYou're in Barcelona, surrounded by Gaudi architecture! The climate is warm and the people are hot.
Amur stickleback (Pungitius sinensis)This year I went to a new country, Turkey, which has been inspiring me for a long time, and among the best was Muslim embroidery. I also went to Switzerland and dove into a beautiful lake. We also had a lot of incredible experiences in South Africa and South America. It was great to travel together. We experienced the cultures of different countries together, empathized with the beauty of the places, and used that in our creations. Sometimes we go to Peru after a very difficult trip and think, "What's the point?
The Inouye Brothers is a fashion brand that weaves together creative, cultural, and social stories. The Inouye Brothers describe their design/art studio as "Scandinasian," based on a love of Japanese delicacy and Scandinavian simplicity. We look forward to their future creations.
