Is there a more vibrant, dynamic city than Tokyo when it comes to setting trends in fashion, lifestyles and industry?
Trend Union SAS, the Paris-based trend-forecasting company, decided the answer was no, which is why it established its second overseas branch office in Tokyo (following New York) in February 2008.
Tasked with setting up the business was Kaori Ieyasu, 37, a representative director of the company. Earlier, she had studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven in The Netherlands, where Li Edelkoort, the Dutch founder and president of Trend Union, also happens to be the academy’s director. After graduation, Ieyasu was invited by Edelkoort to come and work in the Trend Union Paris headquarters and then to set up operations in Japan.
Before the Japan branch office was established, Trend Union had relied on a local trading company to market its trend forecasting data in the form of attractively designed catalogues, flagstone-sized and twice as thick. These hefty volumes contain not only graphs and charts, but also artful concepts and motifs to help clients such as textile-makers, fashion designers, interior decorators and lifestyle businesses grasp the significance of trends.
A motif used in the catalogues forecasting trends in 2011, for instance, is water, which aims to reflect people’s desire to move away from ostentation to simple designs and colours and more sustainable lifestyles. To explain such concepts in depth, Trend Union decided it needed one of its own people in Japan.
“Educating clients on what trends these concepts show, and helping them see how they can be used in their businesses, is so important,” says Ieyasu. “It’s like mathematics. Once you know the rules, you can find answers to many questions.”
This side of her work is different from how the catalogues are marketed in Europe and the United States “Li Edelkoort is so well known in Europe and the United States but not yet in Japan,” she says. “Our clients here need such explanation.”
Another important part of her work is translating the catalogues into Japanese. The typography used to explain the trends is chosen to enhance the aesthetic concepts used to represent them; so the original English remains unchanged. Instead, Ieyasu supplies separate Japanese booklets. Given some eight to 10 catalogues are produced twice a year she is constantly busy.
When she arrived in 2008, Japan was reeling from the Lehman Brothers financial shock. With companies cutting back on expenditures, catalogue purchases were declining. “It was a tough time to come,” she says. Nor had her background in fashion and design prepared her for establishing a company from scratch.
The nuts and bolts of setting up the branch office were no big challenge. She says it was a case of following a series of procedures; she also took advantage of various support services provided by the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO). What did prove to be an obstacle was meeting potential new clients.
“You can’t just walk up to the main gate at Toyota and say you want to talk with their design group,” she explains. “You need to get noticed first.”
So she created a Japanese-language Trend Union website employing the same template as the parent company. “But I made accessing it easier, less complicated,” a prerequisite, she notes, to attracting Japanese people’s attention. The site generated a lot of interest and brought in many enquiries. Ieyasu now employs a full-time web designer who has expanded the site and added sophisticated features like e-sales.
Another step she has taken to gain recognition is to give seminars on trends and invite potential clients to attend free of charge. This is in addition to the twice-yearly visits that Endelkoort pays to conduct seminars in conjunction with the publication of each season’s catalogues.
The result is an increase in visibility and number of requests to attend seminars, which is leading to increased sales of the catalogues.
And her next step? “I need to broaden our base of clients, especially in industry.” Trend Union, she says, has already had success consulting on design with manufacturing companies like Nissan. In the future, she wants to reach a wider audience, including housewives who would like to use their creative talents to design and make things.
“I’m not here just to sell information,” says Ieyasu. “I want to help people use their creative talents.”