Youtuber, Designer, Cult-like Leader: Ken Ijima
In today’s day and age, social media is paramount to success. In this fast paced, fantasised reality full of Instagram reels, YouTube shorts and TikTok viral videos, we often lose sight of authenticity. Although, there are still hidden gems out there that don’t succumb to the new age of popularity and stay true, creating a following purely out of their own personality, and organically generating a cult-like crowd just from being themselves.
On Sabukaru we’ve introduced you to some of the best cult-favorite directors, designers, and photographers from Japan. However, today we take a look at a medium that we have hardly touched upon; that is, YouTube and one of the aforementioned cult leader-like figures, Ken Ijima.
YouTube phenomenon and designer Ken Ijima started taking the online fashion community by storm around late 2019. With consistent daily video content and a minimal yet very on-point taste in fashion, Ken was the whole package. Ken is known as one of the few, if not the only, English-speaking fashion-related YouTubers in Tokyo, and a large portion of his following is made up of people who want a glimpse into Japanese life rather than simply fashion.
Ken’s popularity surpasses the norm, reaching heights unparalleled to many in the same field as him to the point of being looked at as a true inspiration for his followers. Everything he wears sells out, and everything he does becomes the new big hobby, even though he hardly ever posts or tries to achieve this stardom through any other means than just being himself; He’s the anti-influencer-influencer.
Aside from Ken’s relevance on social media, he has in recent years started working on his apparel brand, Vuja Dé Studio. With Ken's strong vision for fashion, Vuja Dé has consistently raised the bar with each of its previous collections. Today, the brand is working closely with renowned Tokyo selector store United Arrows and Sons and is known as one of the most highly anticipated up-and-coming brands in Tokyo.
We sent out Polo Cheng, one of our senior editors and close friends with Ken, to sit down and share with you his story about social media, design, art, and more. We hereby present to you Ken Ijima’s first ever interview.
Who is Ken Ijima? What does he do?
I do YouTube videos and I own an apparel company called Vuja Dé. I’m 26 years old, born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. I lived in Korea for 18 years and went to university in the States. Currently in Tokyo.
How many years have you been working on Vuja Dé? And how many years on YouTube?
This is my 3rd year working on my brand, and for Youtube I started around 2018, so around 5 years. Nowadays I post once in a while, but before this I used to post almost every single day. At the time I started YouTube, I really didn’t want to do it. My friend from the States is the one that actually encouraged me to do it. He said: "Hey, you really should make a Youtube channel that shows Japan from an English point of view." So I started looking at English Youtube channels based in Japan, and I haven’t seen many. Most are food content or short travels, I don’t see much organic or daily vlog type of content, so I took that as an opportunity and gave it a shot.
So from the very start, the channel has been more about lifestyle than fashion?
Yes. For a bit, I wanted to show all the clothing stores in Japan since I’ve always been into fashion, but I never planned on starting a brand. It’s more like a hobby. Believe it or not, I really thought that YouTube was one of those cringe-worthy, "Oh this is what kids do nowadays?" type-of, kinda like the TikTok for the current generation. But after a bit, I saw the potential of Youtube, so I threw my pride aside and just started filming every day, to see how it goes, and maybe if I can gain traction, it could turn into something good.
So what about TikTok? Do you see the potential in TikTok?
Honestly, I don’t see TikTok being normalized to the point where it becomes as popular as YouTube. It’s for viewers with a very short attention span. That’s why the videos are usually 10-30 seconds, just to keep the viewers scrolling. YouTube is more like something you watch while eating dinner, also it offers learning about different cultures and skill sets, at some point I really saw it as an educational tool. However, once I got more used to filming on Youtube, I got really sick of it, since I don’t want to show the same places multiple times. A lot of people are looking forward to the next video, but I was like, "huh, what content do I make?" That’s kind of the pattern of how I started on Youtube.
How was the transition from being an internet figure to running a clothing brand?
It’s a very foreign feeling, I’m not used to it at the start. I would never have imagined that in my lifetime I would be recognized on the streets as well, which is very weird to this day. Anyway the transition was definitely difficult to adjust to, my lifestyle kind changed a little bit as well, just in my mental space to realize that there will be people who walk up to me, I have to take better care of myself for a bit. I’m not wearing bum clothes to a convenience store in broad daylight.
As the mastermind behind the brand Vujade, what is the ultimate goal for the brand?
Initially, I really wanted to make it a creative consultancy. I didn’t tell many people this, but I want to make Vuja Dé a consultancy for individual fashion brands. So anyone who is starting to build their apparel company and they don’t know who to reach out to in terms of factories or photoshoot locations, models, set designers, we want to be a company that could provide all that through our consultancy. I wanted to create Vuja Dé to be this company to provide the resources and make their lives a bit easier.
How many items will be featured in the up-coming Vuja Dé drop? Do you have a personal favorite?
There’s 20 SKUs for the up-coming season, but we’re dividing the drop into 4 to 5 months. Because we don’t want to put all the eggs in one basket. Probably one of my favorites is the leather jacket that we made. with the darts on the shoulder blades that broadens the upper torso and slim down to the hem. Just because of the type of leather we use to make that jacket, we have to experiment with multiple types of hides, whether its lamb or calf, flexibility, mobility, compact hardness and stuff like that, it’s really difficult to source the perfect leather. The other piece I’ll say is very interesting is our denim trousers. We want to make trousers that mimic the look of denim but have that flowy elegant look of your traditional trousers. We added silk into the denim after it was overdyed. And then it adds this flowy look to the denim. It’s not those compact, hard, dry denim, it's more like everyday wear, lounge wear, type of thing.
What's the theme for the new collection?
The title for this new collection is called “Postdecayism”. It's kind of portrayed in the form of a message about the regression of flowers, hence why the flowers for our set design! Our brand ethos is based on the concept of time and partition of past and future, so for this season we wanted to collide the part where flowers/plants decompose into garments.
So most of our clothes for this collection is pretty much an experimentation of fabric response to chemicals, temperature, climate, external factors, and so on. I think it took us around 10 months to fully grasp the idea for this collection and to actually have our samples completed on time. For example, our hoodie took 4 samples and 10 months to develop just because of seasonal changes. Like, during winter the chemicals react differently to cold and dry air vs. warm and moist air during the summer. Simply put, we’re just getting different results every time we proceed with sampling. What's even worse is that there’s a whole separate process for Denim. We have around 4 different denim SKUs, each consisting of heavy treatment totaling around, again 8-10 months to reach its ideal design.
So how does this relate flowers? Well, flowers grow differently at different times of the year. Whether through shape, color, texture, dry, wet…..its just fascinating to collide the life cycle of a plant with clothes.
I can’t help but stress how great the set design in the new look book is! Can you share with us what the process of putting together this shoot was like?
Haha, the set design was honestly a pain to conceive. I had to find a florist who specializes in this type of stuff so our director connected me with a florist that is very well known in Japan. She worked with Loewe, jw Anderson, and other brands’ set designs…so when I heard that I had to lock her in. First we had to draw and sketch how the set would look. I had a reference in mind and its from a movie called Annihilation. I thought it perfectly captured what I was going for for this collection, so we made our own tweaks and adjustments to the set and sketched our own. We then had to pick out what flowers, type of soil, and plants we wanted to use for the set. For example, since the collection is centered around fall-winter, we went for flowers that’s best suited during the fall-winter season factoring in color and their distinctive shapes. I love flowers when they look almost alien-like so of course I opted for the ones that look most ‘weird’ in a sense.
I told the florist that I wanted to look as natural and as wabi-sabi as possible. So our set designer did an amazing job to make the set look the way we wanted. She picked out some plants from her own backyard and in parking lots to make it seem like the flowers are actually growing out of a concrete floor. I think the whole process of just designing and planning the set design took us more than 100 hours.
We have everything documented so you guys can check the video when it's out!
We noticed that for this collection you have a significantly larger team compared to previous seasons, how is it like to work with this many professionals? And if there’s a MVP for this season’s production, who would it be?
One thing I can say about working with professionals is that they’re professionals. They know what they’re doing and they make your life as easy as possible for you. We had a total of 15 members: 3 make-up artists, set designer, hair stylist, art director, 3 stylists, 3 models, director, videographer, and photographer. It's a little hectic working with a huge team but I loved every bit of it. For the first time, it actually felt like I was working with a team who loved what they were doing. So we had a lot of fun and that in itself was definitely worth it!
The MVP for this season’s production would definitely have to be Kugai. I have never worked with anyone so hardworking, passionate, respectful, humble, and all around a wholesome guy as him. Like he’s literally the Mike Dean of Japan lol. He prefers staying low-key and away from the spotlight as sort of this silent creator, who believes the work will speak for itself. I think Kugai and I worked a total of 700 hours together in the course of 1.5 months, where some days we didn’t even sleep for 2-3 days straight. He helped with literally every department; from set design to art direction to styling. Whether the results were going to be good or bad I didn’t know. But the fact that he was willing to go the extra mile to make this collection come to life speaks volumes to me. And I will forever respect him for that.
In the up-coming season, we will be expecting a big Vuja Dé collection with items ranging from leather jackets to denim and even some gloves as accessories. Will Vujade be branching out to making footwear in the future?
Dude! That was actually in the talks last year. I was with my manufacturer looking for Vibram soles. We inquired how much it usually costs to make shoes, because I reckon it’s expensive. Maybe in a year or 2, if it happens it happens.
The United Arrows and Sons x Vuja Dé pop-up earlier this year was amazing. When can we expect the next Vuja Dé live event?
It will happen around the end of November. United Arrows and Sons will be hosting my new fall/winter collection. They’ll probably do a 3-day event, then they’ll permanently stock our clothes. First every stockist of Vuja Dé.
What’s your favorite brand recently? Aside from Vuja Dé.
I’m really liking Issey Miyake, especially the new Homme Plisse 23 spring/summer collection. I’m also very excited about what Matthew Blazy is going to do at Bottega Veneta. Demna is obviously doing great. People always talk about how he’s trolling the fashion industry, and I think he’s doing it purposefully.
I've heard that you’ve been heavily into anime recently. What have you been watching and what do you find entertaining in anime?
I watched Dorohedoro. The art is amazing, most importantly, I think it's the artist that makes the anime, and I gravitate towards female artists in general. Female writers also tend to have very good depth in the plot and the story and narrative. Demon Slayer, Dorohedoro, Made in Abyss, and other titles.
Which is more important, being comfortable or being fashionable?
Comfortable. 100% comfortable. In terms of my lifestyle in general, it is definitely comfortable, but when it comes to attending certain situations, events, and stuff like that, obviously I prefer to be more fashionable. But recently, I don’t have time to choose what I wear every day. I have no freedom, or even the luxury of creativity to do that nowadays. Before I used to think about it a lot, but nowadays it's like, "It's another day of work, so I'mma just wear something comfortable, all black, things I don’t have to worry about.”
Were you interested in fashion as a kid?
I was interested in the culture. I used to ditch school and skate in Korea. It's pretty weird because no one really skates in Korea, and no one ditches school either. It was a really bad thing for me. I used to skip some days of the week and just go skating with friends, 4 to 5 people, and that’s how I got into Nike SB. So the first brands I was attracted to are Nike SB, Mishka (the huge eyeball, it used to be a thing), and Osiris, the fat shoes that Rocky collaborated with. Back then I used to wear a lot of loose trousers just to be comfortable while skating, and sometimes when the trend started transitioning into skinny jeans, that’s when I got into skinny wear. Do you know crew jeans? It's the stuff you find in Pacsun, very very cheap. Again, it's a weird transition, because now people are back into this loose attire. I’m so fascinated by the cycle of fashion.
Have you always known from a young age that you are going to do fashion when you grow up?
My dream was to attend Cooper Union, the art school, so I practiced art for 5 years, just sketching, painting, and sculpting. I don’t really talk about it unless people ask. It's one of the broken dreams, you know. Long story short, I applied to the art school and was forced to withdraw since my mom was rather concerned about my future in terms of career in the field of arts. And that’s when my life took a turn, I quit skateboarding, painting, and everything to focus on my studies. Very Korean. But I’m glad that I eventually ended up doing creative stuff today.
What have you been interested in recently, aside from clothes?
Does drinking count (laugh)? Recently, I really want to do ceramics. I was drinking last night with a few friends, and they were like "Let's take ceramic lessons," because I brought this up a couple weeks ago. I want to get back to sculpting again if I have the chance and time to. Also, Lightroom and DJ stuff are things I’ve been trying to learn recently.
"Wake up baby Ken just posted", what does this mean?
I have NO IDEA and still to this day don’t know why people do that (laugh)! I think it's cool that they are, but I don’t know what that means. I’m not that deep into that meme culture and I’m not on Instagram or social media in general a lot.
What would you say to encourage the younger generation who want to start a brand but have not received formal education in fashion design?
I think right now is the best time to do that. I feel like the scrutiny around independent fashion brands without proper fashion education is becoming more widely accepted. As much as you actually have a brand ethos and a core identity within a respective brand and follow through with it, I know I’ve gotten a lot of feedback, whether positive or negative, but I don’t really pay attention to that, and I really urge the upcoming designers to follow that path and not be discouraged by the people around them. I don’t think it matters as long as you make clothes you like. That’s all that matters.
Anything u want to say before we end this interview?
Thank you, Polo, for hosting this interview. We’ve been friends for a year and a half now, and I’m very appreciative of having you around. To any upcoming designers or anyone who’s reading this, thank you guys for showing appreciation towards me and the brand. I’m very thankful. To anyone who’s trying to start a brand, I will support you all the way, I encourage you to do your best.
Text and Interview: Polo Cheng
Photographer: Tanase
Special thanks to Ken Ijima
