While the combination of fashion and functionality is commonplace today, MINOTAUR INST., based in Nakameguro, Tokyo, was quick to sense the mood of the times and aimed to fuse them. The brand's creative director, Eiichi Izumi, is a visionary innovator, an inventor who provides "excitement" without being confined to any mold, and a skater who can't rest until he's had a go whenever he finds a good park.

The brand, which has fans all over the world and is celebrating its 16th year this year, will be holding a pop-up store at Isetan Shinjuku Store, Men's Building 6th floor = Men's Contemporary from August 21st (Wednesday). This time, we had a frank conversation with Mr. Izumi about the highlights of the pop-up store, his philosophy on design, the "surroundings" he values, and the reasons why he moved his base to Paris.

Eiichi Izumi
Minotaur Creative Director

He started his career as a buyer at "Dice & Dice," a long-established select shop in Imaizumi, Fukuoka. After serving as a director, he launched "Minotaur" in 2004. Currently, in addition to "Minotaur," he also directs the design of work clothes for major home appliance manufacturers and store uniforms for eyewear brands.

Event Information

Minotaur Inst Pop-up Store

□August 21st (Wednesday) - September 3rd (Tuesday)
□ Isetan Shinjuku Store, Men's Building 6th Floor = Men's Contemporary

▶Learn more here

It proposes not only fashion, but also a way of life.

──This pop-up is themed around "Art x Fashion," a concept championed by Men's Contemporary on the 6th floor. How do you perceive the relationship between art and fashion, Mr. Izumi?

I believe that being stylish *only* in terms of clothes isn't true fashion. True coolness comes from looking at a person's entire lifestyle—their art, their culture, their clothing—from a balanced perspective. For example, Andy Warhol remains a timeless icon not only because of his art world acclaim, but also because of the image he projects through fashion and photography.

—People who have individuality and a sense of self are cool, aren't they?

Dressing up doesn't necessarily equate to being cool. If you can look cool in a white T-shirt and jeans, that's fine. But the vast majority of people aren't like that. So when you ask yourself, "What is cool then?", I think it comes down to "being true to yourself." The purpose of Minotaur Inst's clothing is to support those "cool modern people." We pursue functionality every season, in the sense of creating time for the wearer and providing a comfortable fit that minimizes stress.


—Work styles have become more diverse, and it seems that there is more freedom in various aspects.

While every second counts at work, there are also days off when you want to spend two hours traveling to Kamakura. Our perception of time is changing dramatically. I think that's why Shawn Stussy is experiencing a resurgence in popularity right now. They were proposing a "way of life" rather than just "fashion," by centering their lives around surfing and valuing the horizontal connections of "tribes." As lifestyles become more diverse, I think there's a need for clothes that aren't bound by existing rules, clothes that remove the constraints of on and off-duty life.

--One of the highlights of the pop-up is the graphic items that will be exclusively at Isetan Shinjuku Store . They feature geometric motifs.

Hoodie: ¥28,080, T-shirt: ¥15,120
* exclusively at Isetan Shinjuku Store

Minotaur Inst aims to create functional clothing for urban dwellers. For the past few years, the focus has shifted from "you can tell when you wear it" to "you can tell even without wearing it," and we've been challenging ourselves to visually convey functionality and concept.

The graphics for this piece were generated using a visual generator. It's a fusion of abstract painting and artificial intelligence; the streetscapes of Shibuya, tagged with hashtags on social media, were taken into a computer and expressed as abstract graphics.


Actually, this was inspired by subway maps, and the graphic was automatically generated by a program that applied the principle of how horizontal lines and 45-degree lines intersect. It can also be said that it is based on 90s street culture. We have reinterpreted the "graffiti art" that is rooted in the city in a modern way using the Minotaur Inst method.

—The numbers below the graphic indicate the latitude and longitude, correct?

Since the inline campaign is set in Shibuya, for the collaboration with Isetan Shinjuku Store, Men's Building decided to feature the iconic streetscape of Shinjuku, the home base of Isetan. We used the same technique to create graphics of the countless images of Kabukicho scattered across social media. By expressing the city as art, we hope people will feel that the people who live with the city are localized to that place, and that there is a horizontal connection rather than a top-down one.

Since I moved my base of operations to Paris last year, it has been a good opportunity for me to take another look at Shibuya and Shinjuku, two of Japan's most representative districts.

NEXT Paris had a history and a relaxed atmosphere.