Koichiro Kimura is a Sendai-based international designer and is also known as an owner of international, the interior showroom in Sendai-city. Kimura has developed his own style in working with both art and interior design using lacquerware, a main aspect of Japanese traditional craftsmanship. In recent years, Kimura has exhibited at several international exhibitions in addition to getting a lot of offers and commissions from many corporations worldwide.

We had a chance to interview Koichiro Kimura who continues on his course to making some of the most beautiful objects we’ve ever seen.

Please introduce yourself to the Shift readers.

When I aspired to becoming a fashion designer, the designer I looked up to advised me that challenging new things should be the point of one’s life, so therefore, I chose to fall heir to his lacquerware business. I then started exhibiting my works worldwide, like at Milanosalone. Nowadays, I have been working with different companies worldwide for a variety of projects related to art or even high-technology.

You did not study design at school, so why did you choose to be an interior designer?

Well, I base my work on lacquerware. Actually, I have never said that I wanted to be an artist or an interior designer. However, as I started to get offers from various people, I was able to expand the field I worked in. Now, Art has become 90% of my work.

NEW WAVE, GOLD Cup, Saucer & Spoon Set, 2006

Why did you choose Sendai as your working hub?

I love the town where I was born. I even have a feeling of yearning for Sendai. I have been to many towns, but Sendai is just beautiful for me.

Haute-Couture “Swarovski”, Prtable Ashtray, 2007

There is a sense of warmth and benevolentness in your lacquerware, but there also is a sharpness and intensity in your work. How do you make your work? Where do you get ideas from?

When the punk movement was in its prime, I spent All or Nothing in my youth that’s how I lived. I clung to works of Mishima, Mapplethorpe, Parajanyan, Kubrick and Jim Jarmusch. They taught me the meaning of elegance in the extreme. I may not have a good control, but I want to get my straight message out to the world.