In today’s world of highly-polished and mass-produced retail concepts, it is rare to find a gem that echoes a designer and a brand’s identity without seeming manufactured, diluted and a little fake. Whether it is due to factors like an odd location far from a designer’s origins and inspiration, or an ‘off’ interpretation by an architect, many stores are uninviting shells – tempting only with a cold, shiny glamour that lacks emotion.

Jun Takahashi’s UNDERCOVER boutique in Aoyama, Tokyo is a shining example of an individual, customised space filled with intriguing artifacts and interior design that evokes his off-kilter aesthetic and innate sense of the extraordinary. Spanning two floors, he separates mens and womenswear into two distinct levels that divine the disparate sense of his collections – the ground level and its light-globe covered ceiling housing the more elaborate womens ready-to-wear, and the grungy basement floor with the more subdued mens streetwear. The collections themselves play almost second string to the vibrant backdrop, yet nevertheless their rich textural fabrics and warm, dark colour palette play beautifully off the more industrial surrounds.

You cannot turn your head in the space without noticing another discrete example of Jun’s handiwork, whether it is the installation of a Braun radio from industrial designer Dieter Rams (the inspiration for Spring Summer 2010), or a wooden Eames’ chair with its backrest replaced by the anarchist’s ‘A’. From floor to ceiling customers are confronted with exposed concrete with steel frames, barely hiding networks of electrical cables and fluorescent lighting. Fitting rooms belong in a military medical hospital, with thick white curtains and a single wire coat hanger positioned above a simple wooden chair. Photography from the most recent campaign hangs above the dark wooden staircase and in a catalogue sitting on the harshly-lit worktable-cum-sideboard (above).

In effect Takahashi has created a tranquil space, both trademarked yet sparse with overt signatures and logos. Essentially, one must be initiated to know the relevance of each of Jun’s curios, yet without prior knowledge any interested party may enjoy the organised chaos of his world.

Above: the light-globe ceiling of the UNDERCOVER store in Aoyama, Tokyo.

Above: A BRAUN radio designed by Dieter Rams, the inspiration for UNDERCOVER Spring Summer 2010.

Above: A photograph from the UNDERCOVER Fall Winter 2010 campaign in the store.

Above: A sitting area and fitting room below the staircase, on the menswear level.

Above: The discrete front door, revealing the exposed structural work inside the store.

Above: An Eames chair customised by Jun Takahashi.

Above: The ground level womenswear floor of the store.

The UNDERCOVER menswear collection for Spring Summer 2010 has been heavily influenced by the work of German industrial designer Dieter Rams, as revealed to us by the wonderful Také. Hirakawa (Japanese fashion journalist and friend of Jun Takahashi). Dr. Dieter Rams worked for the electronics company Braun for four decades, and was director of design there for over 30 years. Rams’ honed an aesthetic of simple, utilitarian elegance and developed an ease of use and functionality in all his hundreds of products. He is often considered one of the great masters of modernist industrial design. His ethos for design is:

Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design helps us to understand a product.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is durable.
Good design is consequent to the last detail.
Good design is concerned with the environment.
Good design is as little design as possible.
Back to purity, back to simplicity.

It is not difficult to understand Jun Takahashi’s interest in Dr. Rams, when his own principles for design do not fall far from those of Rams, albeit with a slightly more embellished and creative twist. The physical translation of this fascination is evident in the details of Jun’s clothing, and the conceptual link is evident in the execution of his designs overall. Jackets were adorned with patches that resembled radio gauges, tops were perforated like speaker cases, eyewear was transported direct from laboratory to catwalk, and even the colour palette resembled the strict neutrals and metallics of Rams’ designs, only small details adding pops of bright colour.

The influence of Dieter Rams on UNDERCOVER has imbued the clothes with a distinctly industrial and technological aesthetic, that is enhanced by Jun Takahashi’s extensive research and use of technical fabrics. There is a certain naivety to the garments also, the appliqué gauges and discrete patched labelling almost suggesting vintage pilot or scientist uniforms – though with a definitively sportswear edge.

This collision of 21st century Japanese fashion design with 20th century German industrial design could allow for all sorts of recession rhetoric, but this pairing seems rather to sit as a comfortable entry point for Takahashi to introduce his mens collection to the conceptual level of his womenswear. All politics aside, it stands as a beautiful alignment of aesthetics.