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In a small office in the Tokyo neighbourhood Harajuku, Kenta Orimi welcomed me into the studio for his eponymous brand, Orimi. After high school he was drawn to the area, working in various stores and boutiques, and in 2018 he opened The Elephant, a select shop where you’ll find pieces from Stefan Cooke, Vaquera, ERL, Martine Rose, carefully selected vintage pieces, as well as Orimi, of course. Having really grown up in the neighbourhood, seeing an opportunity for a brand rooted in the local community to complement the selections on his shelves, Kenta was inspired to launch his own line. Sitting with him in the studio — located right across from the store — walls clad in wide-plank wood panelling and fluorescent tube lighting, it reminded me of my friends’ basements in Canada, where I grew up, and as I thought about it, my Japanese friends’ homes too. Stuck in the aesthetics of an era past, the space has a comforting, nostalgic familiarity — yet felt happily anachronistic. A sense lingers that the brand could have been made forever in the same space, even if Kenta only just started in 2020. That defines Orimi: familiarly embedded in history, yet feels distinctly new.

Blake Abbie: What first drew you to clothing?

Kenta Orimi: At first, I bought a lot of old clothes in Harajuku and Shibuya. I was looking for something more special and unusual than the big designer brands. I was interested in vintage, military and unbranded clothing. I love vintage clothing and the quality you can find; I’m always looking for the finest textiles that can be found in those vintage shops.

BA: Do you remember finding any early ‘holy grail’ pieces?

KO: I bought a lot of vintage European military clothing, because it has a lot of decorative,but meaningless, details. American vintage military design is driven purely by rational function, where every detail makes sense. But in European military clothing, there is less emphasis on function and more on design and decoration. I have always loved those kinds of random details.

BA: Do you still design by looking for those random details?

KO: Yes, I still focus heavily on the textiles and those small details.

BA: How did you transition from selling vintage to designing your own clothes?

KO: I was born in Tokyo, and when I was studying at university, I started to work as a buyer for a vintage shop called Keshiki, which was the first time I really encountered Japanese designers. In my twenties, this job brought me to Paris, where I began to discover more European and American designers. Those experiences pushed me to open my own shop, The Elephant, in 2018. It was an organic evolution that started by selling vintage, then making remade pieces by combining different vintage garments, sometimes even working in the same way on furniture, like the chairs here in this studio. But working as a buyer for over ten years and seeing so many incredible designers, especially during my visits to Europe, it gave me the passion to start my own label in 2020.

BA: What gap did you want Orimi to fill that you saw missing as a buyer?

KO: In my store, there are many interesting brands, each with its own special character, or kosei. My brand is about me and my life in Tokyo. I live here, I run my store here, and I have a community of customers. Orimi is deeply linked to me and the city. I present during Tokyo Fashion Week, but I also want to take the brand international. I want an overseas audience to feel Tokyo’s unique style and introduce that local Japanese feeling to the rest of the world.

BA: What defines ‘Tokyo style’ for you?

KO: The colour palette is often grey and rough. Personally, I feel that people here are sometimes not as open-minded; whenever I travel to Europe, I find myself becoming much more open. When it comes to fashion, however, Tokyo is much freer. I never liked going to school, as a typical Japanese education wasn’t for me, but when I came to Harajuku, everyone was crazy, unconventional and highly creative. That is exactly why I work in Harajuku. It is a deeply important place for me. I started coming here at 16 and immediately felt a sense of belonging — it felt like home.

BA: What did you study at university?

KO: Economics and Business, but I barely went to classes. I started working as a vintage fashion buyer at that time, so I learned about the fashion industry and business through hands-on experience rather than at school — although I still managed to graduate.

BA: Let’s talk about your studio space. It is surprisingly clean considering you are doing fittings and castings right now.

KO: Since today is only two days before the show, it is a lot more fun and chaotic than usual. We have a mood board for the samples here, which holds all the elements I look at when thinking about references.

BA: Is this how your design process usually starts?

KO: Because I never worked for another fashion brand and didn’t graduate from fashion school, I never learned the ‘proper’ way of making clothes. I pull together many random things, like a fabric swatch or some vintage wear we bought in Koenji. It is just a mix of stuff to help me think about the season. Every season, I piece together a collage from the things I find inspiring to set the mood of the collection.

BA: Do you always start from a blank wall?

KO: Yes. This time, the inspiration started simply from words, like ‘Rock and Roll’.

BA: How are you gathering your visual references?

KO: I don’t have many books here at the studio, but back at my apartment in Shibuya, which is not far from here, I have an extensive collection that I pull references from. Many other things inspire me, too. I get inspired by customers I see passing in front of my store, and I source a lot of inspiration online through Instagram, where we actually share a lot of references.

BA: Digital communication and sharing of references clearly plays a huge part in the process.

BA: What music are you listening to right now? Does it play a big role in your work?

KO: I listen to hip-hop, some shoegaze and alternative rock from the 2000s.

BA: You have a screenshot from an iPhone printed out here. What is written on it?

KO: It’s about music and what kind of sound I want for the show. This time, I invited Nakagawa-san to play the cello live. I want him to create a noisy and crazy ambiance. It feels very contemporary.

BA: Do you have a favourite vintage store in Tokyo?

KO: The area of Koenji is fantastic for vintage shopping, so I just go into various places around that neighbourhood.

BA: Is shopping for vintage in Japan different from elsewhere?

KO: Yes, it is very different. If you go to Koenji or Shimokitazawa, the vintage selection has a completely different taste. Those shops are much more core to our local style.

BA: What did this studio space used to be?

KO: The studio used to be an office for the vintage store BerBerJin. After they moved to a different location, I took it over. The space itself has a vintage feel, if you look at the walls. Starting from vintage clothing and always thinking about vintage — this kind of place is perfect for me.

BA: The walls are bare here in the studio, is there a reason you haven’t painted them?

KO: I’m lazy. [Laughs.] Orimi has been running for four or five years now, and because it started from the store, it has always been a community-driven brand. A month ago, we did a pop-up at Shibuya Parco, and it was amazing to see all our customers gathering together. I always want to create locally for the customers and the community I see and connect with every day.

Photography by Myra Toyo Shimada (@myrashimada)