Why do you have Synargie in Osaka, not in Tokyo?

K.K: We’ve always been venturing into the next challenge since we started out Pied Piper. As we haven’t got much money and want to take great pleasure in what we do, we’ve been keeping on working constantly as pedaling a bycycle. So, it’s a challenge by our instinct to branch out to Osaka that we like.
We’ve always been venturing into the next challenge since we started out Pied Piper. As we haven’t got much money and want to take great pleasure in what we do, we’ve been keeping on working constantly as pedaling a bycycle. So, it’s a challenge by our instinct to branch out to Osaka that we like.

What’s your idea about the internet?

K.K: As we are based in Japan that we love a lot, we have a will to change the country better. There’s our own term “Tokyo’s core”, and we hope there’ll be people who can send a persuasive message from Tokyo’s core to the world. Other than ours, there should be various cores generated by people out there.
Through the message, we want to show what’s happening in Tokyo to the people in the rest of the world.
While we were decorating the interior of Synergie in Osaka, I met a couple of German guys, keith and Marc, who had designed the lay-out of the interior. They are very much interested in Japan, like they believe that Japan is really creative and cybercultural and say Tokyo is terrific. But, Japanese people are generally unaware of what’s happening here in Japan and always pay attention to the west. Perhaps, a lot of people in the rest of the world are more concious of Japan than we expect. However, the Japanese have never been able to get through to them well until now. Japan has proposed no real thing in the past, which causes the Japanese to be not confident and proud of what they do.
Eveyone here tends to be still nutty about snatching the cream of nuggets from the west. That’s why we go for the internet to show what we are doing.

Are you thinking of selling your gears on the net?

K.K: Basically, it’s a tough call for us to do because our gears are each limited in number. If you have lots in stock, the internet is convinient for sellers to sell.
So far, we think our web site is showing our catalogue with pictures.

In Japan, it’s still hard to sell stuff through the net, isn’t it?

K.K: Yeah, you have to actually touch it with your bare hands before you purchase. Sellers also need to listen to customers’ tastes before they sell gears. I guess it’s difficult for you to get your hands on them without a touch.

Yoshihara: Initially, we thought we were going to have a gallery space on the internet for thousands of well-known/unknown artists who wanted to show their works but have no chance to do so.

I suppose you have to be very active to show visitors what you want to show. Once you start being on the web, you can realise there’s a good connection with visitors growing in time, and which is fun. In that circumstance, it’s advantagious for you to have real shops like Pied Piper, A New Shop and Synergie so they can actually visit the shops when they come around.
In that context, maybe, it’s good to sell limited gears only on the net,isn’t it?

S.K: As I am particular about materials, monitors are not good enough to deliver the details of the materials, I guess. I am kind of the person who want to be particular about even a stitch.
But, I think only T-shirts are suitable for us to deal in on the net.