： THE ORIGIN OF DEVOA Ⅱ

January 22nd, 2025. I arrive in Paris, from Japan, for the Autumn / Winter Exhibitions.
As soon as I alight from the plane, I am always reminded of that uniquely Parisian smell. I rush to the gate to retrieve my luggage, always anxious about the possibility that some of my precious clothing samples may have somehow become lost.

I am in Paris for the 2025 Fall/Winter exhibition that will start tomorrow. I began participating in the Paris exhibitions in the 2009 Fall/Winter season and, excluding the three years I was unable to travel due to COVID, I have exhibited continuously in Paris 26 times. I still continue to challenge myself to this day, over 13 years later.

Despite having been to Paris so many times, I still feel the same familiar mix of feelings : of confidence in the products I have made, combined with an anxiety about the reaction of the buyers when I finally exhibit these new designs at the exhibitions. Every season and each new collection, I am able to create samples and exhibit them because of immense time and cooperation provided by DEVOA staff, various artisans and fabric factories.

In this chapter, I would like to recall and write about my memories of my first exhibition in Tokyo, and of my first exhibition in Paris.

Before starting my own brand DEVOA in Tokyo, I worked as a sales agent for about a year, for other domestic Japanese brands. In this work, I introduced the brands I had under my charge to multi-brand stores all over Japan. I was able to come face to face with the owners and buyers from many of the top stores, some of whom I intended to do business with at future DEVOA exhibitions.

On weekends I would travel from Tokyo to cafes and restaurants in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture to hold experimental exhibitions of the clothes that I, myself was creating.

January, 2008.

DEVOA held its first exhibition in Tokyo for the 2008 Fall/Winter collection. I hand-wrote invitations to the exhibition for 13 multi-brand store owners whom I had met while working as a sales agent and who I felt I wanted to work with. As a result, for this first season, I started to do business with 11 stores in total.
I was more than satisfied with the results of the first exhibition as it was never my intention to do business with a lot of stores. Rather, I wanted to collaborate with a limited number of stores that I felt had a strong sense of commitment and a good understanding of the products.
For this first domestic exhibition, we used a space at the back of a parking lot in Ebisu. I took photos of the collection myself using a cheap camera I bought at a nearby electronics store. I was trying hard to be as frugal as possible and not waste any of the funds that I had raised for DEVOA.

The company started with a total capital of 3 million yen that I borrowed from my parents and the bank, but at our first exhibition, we received orders for a total of 30 million yen (retail price).

Ironically, this unexpected success meant that I would not have had enough money to cover my manufacturing costs and could have easily resulted in my bankruptcy.
Since I had very little experience, it was difficult for me to borrow more money from the banks etc. So, instead I consulted with the owner of “AL” a very well-respected Tokyo store that had already placed an order.

The owner, Mr. Yoshihara, immediately got back to me and transferred a total of 5 million yen to me, as this was the total amount he would have paid to me eventually.
He transferred the full amount of his order in advance, even though I was still a completely unknown brand.
Without this kindness, I think it would have been very difficult, from a business perspective, for me to keep the brand alive even for the first season.
I still do business with “AL” to this day, and whenever I meet Yoshihara san and talk about old times I always remember his wonderful act.
Incidentally, Mr. Yoshihara also paid me the full amount for all his ordered items for the following season too, even before delivery. Thanks to that, I am still able to continue the brand to this day.

Looking back on it now, I realize that it was in this first season that i was able to learn a lot about the simple business mechanisms that I still use to this day.

January, 2009.

This was a big year for me as I got a passport and travelled outside Japan for the very first time in my life.
I had no experience of going abroad, nor of the Paris exhibitions. I also had to face the task of going through all the paperwork needed for taking the samples through customs when I entered Paris.
So it was a big challenge that I took when deciding to do an overseas exhibition. It was like walking down a road blind and being unable to see anything in front of me.
Paris seemed to be much colder then than it is now; and the cold and snowy weather, which was different from Tokyo, and the unfamiliar travel conditions left me physically and mentally exhausted even before I started the exhibition.

For our first exhibition venue, we rented a gallery in the Marais district and shared it with another Japanese brand called individual sentiments.
We were still getting used to the unfamiliarity of Paris when we finally arrived at the exhibition space and, with no time to rest, we began setting up the exhibition and holding our first meetings.

I attended the exhibition with my pattern maker of that time and I was full of unfounded confidence. I didn’t use hangers or anything but mostly just laid most of my samples flat on the floor for the exhibition.
While many brands were holding exhibitions in Paris, the only weapons I had to deal with overseas buyers at the time were my own philosophy and unique patterns so I thought that our exhibition method also needed to assert the individuality of the brand in a special way.
Looking back on it now, I think it was hard for the first-time buyers to understand the products, so in order to try explain them, I had to pick up clothes from the floor and put them on myself.
At the time, I was so focused on what was directly in front of me that I didn’t have a very objective perspective; so I simply tried to show my own ideas in the best way i could.

The brand that I was sharing the gallery with, “individual sentiments”, had also debuted in Tokyo at the same time as DEVOA in 2008. They were also holding their first Paris exhibition at the same place and time. Although they were debuting in the same year, the designer of individual sentiments had actually experienced working for other overseas brands, and so their brand was far superior to DEVOA in both the quality of the products and the fame of the designer herself.
So, in fact, most of the buyers who came to the exhibition were there to see individual sentiments.

I exhibited my designs next to theirs, but it almost felt like no buyers were really looking at my products and they had become almost invisible.
However, that feeling of defeat I felt at the time has since become a source of emotional support for me and a desire for greater exploration.

That Paris exhibition lasted for about a week and, since there were only a few appointments with buyers every day, I became bored and began to wonder what I was doing in Paris. I felt like my bank account was shrinking day by day and a tremendous fear, that is difficult to put into words, began to dominate my mind. However it was still necessary for me to face the buyers with a smile.

During this first exhibition in Paris, I received orders from four buyers.
However, when I returned to Japan, three of the orders were cancelled, so I ended up with only one order at the end of my first international exhibition.
Of course, as a business, as a result of traveling from Japan to Paris and holding the exhibition for a week, I wasn’t even able to earn enough from it to cover the plane ticket, and the one million yen I borrowed from my father was gone in an instant.
This feeling of defeat was completely different from when I was playing sports and the sadness of not being able to show my work.
So, for the first time in my life, I had lost all my savings and confidence.
It was difficult for me to face the people who had supported me as this was the level of ability I was able to reach at that time.

Fashion moves very quickly, in both good and bad ways so I had no time to recover from the emotional wounds I had sustained in Paris and my only option was to spend about half my time secretly working part-time jobs and preparing for the next Paris exhibition.
I was really struggling to even make ends meet but the feeling that I couldn’t let it end in defeat, kept me going.

June, 2009.

I held the second Paris exhibition in the same place and shared the gallery with the same brand.
As with the previous exhibition, I spent more time sunbathing outside than explaining the products at the exhibition, and again, like with the other exhibition, my brand did not catch the eye of the buyers, as if there was nothing there.
At this exhibition, I received orders from about five stores. However, the content was not viable from a business perspective, and I was worried about the payments from the stores, so I did not feel like I had really received a credible order.
After this second Paris exhibition, during the flight back home, I had no time to be sad and instead was thinking about what to do next.
I think I may have been more mentally strong then than I am now. I was doing many things for the first time, so I may have been able to concentrate on exactly what I wanted to do in the same way a child does. Obviously the thought that there would be no next step unless I managed to raise enough funds was always dominating my mind, so I did not have much time to think about design.

January, 2010.

This was DEVOA’s third exhibition in Paris and the atmosphere at the exhibitions began to change a little from this time onwards.
I don’t know why, but the pattern maker and I felt that the buyers’ reactions and the atmosphere in the exhibition space were clearly different from previous seasons.
Of course, I understand that the number of buyers visiting and the way they viewed DEVOA changed partly because of the continued efforts of our sales agent at the time, but when I think back, it brings back many good memories which fill me with a strange sense of elation.
At the time of the exhibition, the number of stores dealing in artisan-style products was beginning to increase and I think that the content that DEVOA was producing was a good match for this movement, and this led to increased sales.
So, it was around this time that the Paris exhibitions finally started to become a little more enjoyable.
At this third Paris exhibition, we only had about eight overseas clients, but rather than this result, I was more satisfied mentally.

Nowadays, thanks to the continued support of everyone involved both inside and outside of DEVOA production, I have grown a little mentally since then, and am now able to face buyers with a true smile on my face.

My passion for design has not changed and I still feel like I am living my dream.
Holding an exhibition in Paris one time is actually quite simple.
However, the difficult thing, both mentally and financially, is to continue to create these exhibitions season after season.
This is because even if the designs produced are great and the designer’s personality is good it can still be difficult for a brand to continue.
The sewing factories, fabric makers, staff and even business partners should be one team who all share the passion for the brand. Maintaining this connection is the most difficult thing, and the larger the business becomes, the more problems are destined to occur.

Without having the support of these people around me, I think that my heart would have been broken after just that first season. So, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved with DEVOA.

And I would particularly like to express my sincere gratitude to all of the clients who purchase DEVOA.

Next time, I would like to talk about a miracle that happened in Paris…
I will probably share that story in about six months time.

Until then…….