What led you to create your Gigi pants?

My intention was to make a new staple for this generation: utility pants that accommodate various body types, ages, and genders.

Are they meant for daily wear? In which contexts do you think they will be most useful?

They can be used for daily casual wear as well as indoor and outdoor activity. I can imagine them being used for yoga, meditation, karate, bouldering, gardening, and hiking—just for a few examples.

It’s interesting how simple yet variable they seem at the same time.

The pants have been designed using details that allow each wearer to customize them. The adjustable waist accommodates not only a variety of sizes, but also wearing the pants in different waist positions. It also gives you the option of wearing them using the attached drawstring or your own favorite belt. The cuff drawstring gives you the option of a cinched cuff or a straight leg. It depends on the wearer’s preferred style for whatever situation they’re in. I hope people will find their own way of wearing the pants at different times, and that people will wear them for a long time and build a lot of good memories.

Would you say that traditional gi pants are the “ancestors” of the Gigi line?

Yes. Keikogi is the traditional Japanese uniform for martial arts such as karate and judo. In the western world, the gi is more commonly known today as the uniform for training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Gi pants really are some of the most elegantly useful garments ever conceived.

The monolith is depicted in a Cartesian cubic lattice system with a mathematical ratio of 1:4:9 in the third dimension. But the cube is an old spatial concept, made standard under the conditions of Earth’s gravity. In the standard that will develop under zero gravity in the 21st century, it would be more of a Fullerian tetrahedral system.

This is somewhat complex stuff. Are you able to put it into layman’s terms?

They were originally designed using efficient pattern- cutting that took anatomy and movement into account so that their construction would hold up against the repeated stress that martial arts training would subject them to. Minimum timing of manufacture, with easy care and long wear.

Have you trained as a martial artist?

Yes. As a former practitioner of karate, gi pants are very familiar to me. I’ve been interested in redesigning them for a long time. I’ve been wearing my gi pants a lot during quarantine, and I rediscovered the potential of the pant’s design. Starting from the tradition and history, I set out to redesign them by imagining their ongoing timeline from now into the future.

Please tell me about your Wave of Sand concept.

Sand is something that has resonated for me for a long time. It has to do with my mutual image of Japan and America—and the future. In Japan we have karesansui, which is the traditional garden style where patterns are created using waves of sand or small pebbles. In America, there are the vast sand deserts in the west, where the spirit of the land endures.

And how does the future tie into this?

I imagine the future as looking like some of the illus- tration work of the artist Moebius, where things are somewhere in between east and west, with a feeling of adventure and positivity.

How does the Wave of Sand moniker apply to this line of garments?

It’s based on democratic and collaborative principles. Since I was born and raised in Japan, traveled throughout Europe, and am now based in New York, I believe in a universal sense that can connect each individual while still respecting their unique being.

So the universal is like a field full of grains of sand, which are the individuals.

As a word “sand” implies an uncountable mass noun. So I feel it translates the concept of the new line. And when I think of the “wave,” I wish to send a good vibration from this line as far as it can reach into the future.