Innovative Textiles
Falling in Love with Holo Market
Many moons ago, I was a fashion design student. I was always drawn to textures, colors, and prints. When I saw Holo Market debut his first collection in New York City, an excitement I hadn’t felt in a while for a new brand awoke.
As we were chatting in both Japanese and English, thanks to Emma, who has been helping Riki since the beginning and acted as a translator during our interview, our language barrier seemed nonexistent because of our shared love for textiles. As we talked about his journey and inspirations Riki pulled prints from his archive and even showed me what he was developing at the moment with unmatched passion and excitement that made it impossible not to fall in love with both the brand and the designer behind it.
In 2019 Riki Yoshida, a hand-printing artisan, launched his brand, 9M at Paris Fashion Week. 9M became Holo Market when its latest collection debuted in both Tokyo and New York Fashion Week.
Riki Yoshida graduated from the University of Osaka with a Fashion Design degree. Straight after graduation, he started working for a textile company in Kyoto where he created innovative textiles for brands like Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake, and Chanel. During that time, he started making his own clothes as a hobby. His garments started to gain attention so he decided to put more effort into creating his own clothing line.
Japanese fashion is known on the western side of the world for its unique shapes and innovative use of technology, but since starting his career, Riki has always been drawn to textiles. “I didn't want to go through the path of entering a fashion brand and being asked to draw a pattern or go to the same path all fashion students follow after finishing school, I wanted to be more creative,” Riki said.
Holo Market’s collections are always designed with a particular theme in mind. When it comes to figuring out the theme for the collection, Riki bases it on his experiences during a certain period in his life.
Since he doesn’t radically change the oversized silhouettes that characterize Holo Market, once Riki has a theme in mind, his design process always starts by creating a shape that will match the pattern and textile he has in mind. After that, he chooses the colors that fit within his theme.
The Spring Summer 2023 theme is “What a Wonderful Day”, which talks about the duality between nature and city life. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Riki lived in Kyoto and spent most of his days at Lake Biwa, a famous destination for camping and fishing. He wanted to create a collection that could be worn for a full week; one that would reflect both the nature of Lake Biwa and his lifestyle in Kyoto.
“In this collection, you can see a blurred flower print that looks as if the ink is bleeding a little bit on the outside, something that was done on purpose to reflect the water in lake Biwako because the water is very fluid,” Emma explains. That was the inspiration that was achieved using two different techniques for different pieces within the collection: screen-printing and fabric bonding.
“If you look closely at the clothes, some of them have a fishing vest; that came from my time spent fishing with my kids,” Riki said as we looked closely at some of the pieces of his latest collection. “Even the backpacks that were created in collaboration with Katsuyukikodama Paradiddle were thought of as pieces of luggage that I could carry throughout the week, from work and daily life to camping.”
In past collections, Riki has expressed how fashion has evolved, especially after the pandemic. “He is starting to notice that people are spending a bit more on clothing,” Emma told me. This has allowed Riki to change the way he designs. “Before COVID, he used to create something that maybe one out of one hundred would wear, but now he is more interested in creating something more approachable. When Holo Market first came out as 9M it was a menswear brand. As it has been evolving, it has become more fluid and more unisex, which is exactly what Riki wanted to achieve.
Holo Market operates under this motto: “Concept-craftsman meets luxury abnormal uniform.” I had to ask what he meant by such a specific way of defining a brand. “Riki is a craftsman, so that’s where the craftsmanship comes from, and from the way he processes and creates textiles. When it comes to luxury, the textile that he is making is for luxury brands, but it has to be a bit abnormal, and that’s where the concept comes from,” Emma explained.
Craftsmanship is an act deeply appreciated in Japan; there is a lot of admiration and respect for it. For Riki, craftsmanship is all about keeping the tradition alive while, at the same time, evolving and trying to invent something new. It’s not about only screen printing but finding new ways of making textiles.
For this collection, he created jackets out of coffee beans. Kyowas’ coffee in Kyoto gave Riki the particles left over from the ground coffee beans coming from the machines. After experimenting with them he came up with a piece of cloth deodorizing and water-repellent. So, it’s always about innovating and discovering new ways to create a craft.