In July the world woke up to how rich Japan’s Fast Retailing Co had become when it tried to buy Barneys. Now the group is set on making its Uniqlo brand a powerful – and very Japanese – global brand.
Architects Takaharu and Yui Tezuka joined forces with Kashiwa Sato, one of Toyko's most respected creative directors, to build and brand, a novel kind of kindergarten in Tachikawa, a suburban area of Tokyo. Monocle's Asia…
Japanese pop star Takeshi Kobayashi owns several restaurants in Tokyo and has his own farm, so the soba restaurant he chose for his ‘last meal’ was bound to be good.
Provenance is set to become key as we turn our backs on products made at dodgy factories in who-knows-where. Consumers want authenticity and, as many companies have found, they’re happy to pay for it.
In Japan, if you’re not doing ‘rajio taiso’ you’re either dead or you’ve slept in. Millions of Japanese rise early every morning to get together and do radio exercises – the rest do them at work.
Welcome to Monocle’s annual round-up of 20 people who we think deserve a bigger stage. We cover diverse professions from shoe designers to politicians because we believe it’s not only the grand scale that matters, but the…