Ridgeline subscribers —

In a bizarre confluence of Japan-based media coincidence, I’m on the cover of Papersky’s latest issue (where I walk around Yamaguchi with their team) and also have an article / portrait (alongside Cate Blanchett, natch) in UNIQLO’s latest LifeWear Magazine. LifeWear is available for free at all UNIQLO stores worldwide. Every issue is bilingual, and they localize the non-Japanese translations by locale. So you can read my article in Spanish in Spain, in French in France, and in Australian in Australia. I believe the circulation number I was quoted — i.e., the number of issues printed — is something like 5,000,000. It’s an insane and impressive media operation and I’m delighted to take part. The LifeWear team was lovely to work with.

The title of the essay is: “A Perfect Sweater for a Perfect Kissa” but it’s the subtitle I dig the most: “To last, a thing must be well-made. Whether it’s a sweater or a café.” Basically, the editors of LifeWear read the Japanese edition of Kissa by Kissa. They reached out to me: Want to write about a classic café for us? Sounded fun. (And: Paid well! Something worth mentioning because of how dour the state of getting paid to write is today.)

I used the opportunity to highlight Būgen, the kissa in Ōfuna about which I made a little documentary. I contend they serve some of the best pizza toast in Japan, certainly the most beautifully presented. And they are, if nothing, classic.

In early April, during the only two weeks of my entire adult life where I had bangs, the editor, photographer, and I met at Būgen before it opened. I put on a sweater. Yamane-san made some pizza toast, and out of the roughly ten billion photos they took, mercifully, one was usable. It was fun to tie this incredible scale of media exposure (five. million. copies.) back to the original walk that started so much of my “contemporary career” — it was Būgen that I first stopped at on day one on my way out of Kamakura, walking up to Tokyo, following the Nakasendō all the way to Kyoto and beyond, waaaaaaaay back in the prehistoric times of 2019.

All in all, a fun little project / side quest that I snuck in before heading off on the big TBOT tour in May. The idea was to define “classic” in the context of kissaten. I landed on: Excellence over time. Since this is not a magazine published in a vacuum, everything has to tie in with UNIQLO in some way. I am terrible at “modifying intent for an external editor.” So I sort of brute-forced the connection, but it’s kinda cute, I think:

“That’s me in the photo there, sitting in Būgen, wearing UNIQLO’s new lambswool sweater. It’s a nice sweater. I enjoyed wearing it while eating some perfectly made pizza toast. Clothing made out of high-quality raw materials, cut in a comfortable way will age with you in the same way you can age with a good kissa. You put the sweater on or walk into the shop, and you feel that tinge of nostalgia, that classic sense of excellence over time.”

And, no, I didn’t get to keep the sweater :)

More soon,
C