As part of our ongoing Snapshots video series in partnership with GQ Japan, we reveal the creative process of the country’s most significant fashion designers. Here, we meet Daisuke Obana of N.HOOLYWOOD
Not one to collect things for the sake of it, Japanese designer Daisuke Obana of label N.HOOLYWOOD started collecting things even less and less once he started making his own clothes. Part of this may be because he is constantly cutting and burning clothes as he likes to get a deeper look to how they have been made.
“I might want to know what’s inside of a down jacket,” says Obana from his studio. “When it comes to it, really regrettably I have no choice but to cut into it. So, when I’m doing my own collection I’m cutting and burning things as that’s the only way to figure certain things out. I’ve burnt things to find the composition; if it flares up you know it’s a chemical fibre.”
It’s these unexpected discoveries that keep Obana at the top of his game, constantly searching for something new.
“If I dug into only what I liked, if I looked only at those things, at the end of it, it’s just your hobby and I wouldn’t get to see anything new.”
Known for producing quality high-end menswear with edgy modern yet retro design, Obana is known to take old things, add to them, then create something truly different.
Having launched N.HOOLYWOOD in 2000, after spending time working in vintage stores and as a buyer, Obana launched his first flagship store Mister Hollywood in December the same year. For Spring/Summer 2002 he presented his first runway collection, using a nightclub as the venue.
“I am more conscious of wool when I am doing summer clothes.
I’d definitely use wool to achieve the effects that chemical fibres can’t express and only wool can achieve.”
