Approaching The "Godfather Of Japanese Trend" Teng Yuan Hao

Teng Yuan Hao's camera

Teng Yuan Hao's shoes

Teng Yuan Hao's Watch

F: do you love skateboards?

H: yes, when I was very young, I already liked it.

When I returned to London in 85 years, I visited Wild Bunch guys, Nellee Hooper and Milo Johnson (DJs and producer).

I was very surprised when they showed me the video of Bones Brigade, because I had never seen Ollie (a skateboard), which seemed to me a magic trick.

But at that time, skateboards had not been affected by hip-hop until one or two years later, hip-hop culture began to penetrate into all fields, and the brand of Shawn Stussy was also established in the United States, so I used to buy Stussy products.

F: I know from Shawn and Paul Mittleman (Stussy's principal) that Pat Field is one of their projects in New York. I think she is inspired by selling Chanel imitation hat and continues to create Stussy's "SS" logo.

H: I realized Shawn through a surfing friend in Japan. We spent the night wandering around, and then he said, "OK, Hiroshi, I will give you a gift."

I didn't know what he meant at that time, but about two weeks later, I received a huge box full of Stussy clothes.

I was really happy and surprised at that time. I always wore Stussy things from then on.

Until now, I have always liked working with Stussy, which has a distinctive style and culture.

F: I can say fairly that the street style of the products co worked with Stussy will be strong, which is also my style.

But Stussy will try to combine many elements together, and fashion, art and music will be organically combined, just like your brand name "Goodenough" in Japan.

H:Goodenough is also inspired by Stussy and Anarchic Adjustment.

Shawn is surfing, and I think I should be BMX, but I am mixing Fashion. Maybe I know music and Fashion, and I am also a DJ, so I can mix them very well.

The success of F: Goodenough is due to the increase in the emergence rate of Japanese magazines. How did this happen?

H: in those days, people would like to get more information, but somehow I have many channels to get information. Maybe I have friends in places like London, New York, Losangeles and so on.

Sometimes I write articles for magazines, and people will start to say, "if you want to know more, ask Fujiwara Hiro."

From this time on, Goodenough also began to develop.

At that time, Nigo served as my deejaying and styling because he had a deep understanding of the matching of clothes.

Also at my side is Jun Takahashi (Gao Qiaodun), and then student Shinsuke Takizawa (Takizawa Nobusuke).

I asked Shinsuke to work as a File Records and Major Force brand.

F: all of this sounds very natural. Have you made any plans or made any strategies before?

H: I never make plans.

F: now that many things have changed, now your Fragment design is made up of only two or three people. This is very interesting. Many know that you work in a small team, but that's not the case.

H: Yes, when I was still working at Goodenough, I hired several people to work in my office. But in the late 90s, I realized that this was not what I needed to do. I didn't want to hire many people to become a big company.

I think what I need is an independent brand or solo operator, so I made a decision to hire only one or two assistants to change into a design studio. Although there is no big company's development potential, it is more suitable for me.

F: I am very supportive of your work style. Before you quit deejaying, I remember you told me that your heart is no longer here.

In fact, I think when you saw deejaying older than you when you were 18 years old, you would say "This guy isn''t the real deal", is that so?

H: Yes, the biggest reason is that when I started my DJ career, I didn't like some other Japanese DJ people who live a salaried employee's life, because they didn't know what they were singing, but they knew that they were popular, and that's not what I wanted to see.

When you do DJ, you don't even know who is the producer and the type of music, let alone know the names of these tracks.

Of course, I will have this situation. When I do not know these songs, I will go to the record shop, and talk with the staff there to understand that I am not sure what songs are good, so I will choose the songs they suggest and put them in CLUB.

I think I have enough DJ technology, and I can mix many songs.

But I realized that, like DJ, which I hate, I didn't have enough knowledge, so I decided to be honest with myself and leave DJ.

F: who do you think is more successful or influential in your friends or peers?

For example, Takahashi or Nigo, who are the two of them outside Japan?

H: I think their success is amazing. I don't like this kind of thing happening to me.

I don't want to express myself in a categorization way, nor do I want people to know who I am.

F: Yes, they all know what they are doing.

H: when Jonio and Nigo founded Nowhere in Harajuku, Japan's bubble economy just ended, so prices were very low.

So what we called Ura-Hara was nothing at that time.

I remember that I helped Jonio design products, such as handprinted T-Shirts or something.

Wait until the first day of sale, there are 20 queues.

Second days, increased to 40 people, so Nowhere was established.

F: you and Takashi Murakami (Murakami Takashi) held the Hi / Lo exhibition in recent years, sometimes they mentioned me. Don't you think the Japanese have some similarities with the Westerners in the art of "get"?

The purpose of the exhibition is not to try to show some special features of Japanese people?

H: well, Murakami and I have been working together in many fields. It's my pleasure.

When his program invited me to be a guest, we often talked about art, though he didn't know that I was interested in this topic.

Later, he was surprised to find that I had some works of Warhol and Richter and Basquiat, so I think he invited me to the show largely to see me.

F: very good. Can you tell me what collections you have?

H: they are all things that they like.

I am not a real art.

A family can only be regarded as a person who loves collecting.

I think art experts in my mind are probably in the US and Europe, because people there are independent attitudes towards art, unlike in Japan, they mix fashion and other things.

And my understanding of art is more enjoyable.

F: in the past 20 or 30 years, New York, London and Tokyo have provided inspiration for you. What do you think of these vibrant cities?

What kind of scene do you think this is?

H: these places have become very boring.

I mean, 30 years ago, London was really different from other cities, including swinging London and Punk, which made me want to go there all the time.

But after that, hip-hop attracted my eyes again.

If you have been to New York, you needn't go there anymore.

For example, if I see a good photo book in New York, I don't want to bring it back to Japan. I can buy it directly from Amazon.

It's no longer a place to hunt for treasure. In the past, where else would I go to find Air Jordans, MAX 95 and bring them back to Japan.

F: Yes, now almost everyone can find what he needs online.

H: this method is very convenient, but it is also very dull.

F: maybe that's why the development of culture is so slow now.

H: I think all the rejuvenation is over. In the past punk revived every 10 years.

When people forget punk for a while, the magazine will launch a punk 10th anniversary commemorative edition.

But now you can find music and information in any period through the Internet, so everything has not disappeared. It's just waiting for someone to excavate it in an unknown corner.

F: This is very interesting. I've read an interesting article before, written by Malcolm McLaren in last year's Financial Times.

He analyzed what he called "karaoke culture", and I think he was referring to these programs such as American Idol or Britain''s Got Talent.

Among them, the participants want to become famous through such a way of becoming famous. Some of them even come from imitation or plagiarism. What do you think of this culture?

Do you think these programs are more like a dress-up party about karaoke?

H: Yes, it is a bit like that.

What I mean is that when Malcolm is inspired by Situationists and Rockabilly, it will be relatively pale. When people copy others, they usually have no idea of their own.

F:Well, he did not deny everything, and there were real talent there.

But some of his comments at karaoke culture also appear in pop culture.

H: I guess he used the term "karaoke culture" just because he liked it personally.

(laughter) but how to say it, even copying or patchwork will have its value. For example, you see a polo shirts, but the style of this dress has appeared in many brand products, even though you still want to make this dress different from others.

I mean, I copied a lot of things, but I also respect the original material.

However, some big companies only think of how to make money, do not join their own creative things, sometimes I feel that they will not even respect the most basic.

F: rather than plagiarism, it is better to add some new elements from it.

H: it's hard to tell.

F: remember last year you wrote this book called Personal Effects, and openly displayed 100 personal personal things you love and think that occupy an important position in their lives.

I like it very much, and I want to sweep up all the English version.

May I introduce it to you?

H: some magazine publishers are interested in my new book, but a very special name has attracted me. The publisher named Magazine House has published Brutus and Popeye.

You know which Japanese fashion books experts want me to follow a book written by a designer named Sonya Park, listing 101 of her favorite objects. It's really great. They all want me to write new books in this form.

I like this expression very much, but I may not find many things to write about, or another way is to write something that is easy to find.

I also plan to introduce a book about sneakers. It will be like an encyclopedia or a sports shoe history. You can introduce all kinds of sneakers to your children through this book.

F: when you set up Honeyee.com in 2005, it caused a lot of blind imitators. What do you think?

H: Well, it's not the first time we've been working on websites, but I'm waiting for a suitable time.

At that time, I met SOPH.'s Hirofumi and Visvim's Hiroki every month and kept saying that it was time to make a website.

At that time, there were some trend websites selling some single products in Japan, but we were different from them.

When I choose my name, I start with H, because Hirofumi and Hiroki and Hiroshi are all H, and then Honeyee.com sounds like "honeycomb", also like "to hesitate" in Japanese.

Connecting with.Com is also like reading "Honey, come. Come to honey...".

F: so this is a onomatopoeia.

H: Yes, it's easy to remember.

When we started to do it, I knew clearly that I needed to make a blog, because not many people would put pictures on their blog at that time, and then the blog was more like the twitter now, only the text.

But I think many people around me have.

Cameras often take pictures, so blogs allow them to show pictures and let people understand their lives more intuitively from blogs.

F: before Honeyee.com, the trend website only focused on products, and there were no pictures belonging to individuals. So when you first appeared in this form, they were still very interested.

H: I think what we have done now has been popularized to every trend website, nothing special.

I mean, nowadays, there are more and more websites of this type. Honeyee.com is only one of these fashionable websites, but I have been looking for some new elements to add.

F: what do you do now?

H: there are some projects going on. Of course, I can't tell you what these are.

I will still take part in Fashion's work, including shoes and clothes design.

Although I will not wear or buy these products, I will pay attention to it as though Cassette Playa has introduced new products, I will not wear them, but when I see them, they will still be very interested.

F: will you pay special attention to children?

H: not only children, old people, but anyone.