TAKA Original is fascinated by the futurism of all times. Exploring future visions from the 1990s to the 2059s, interesting expectations and realities arise. Based on the concept of “Create The Fun” the collective of young designers, most of all, want to play around with ideas from their own community. Looking at the fashion industry as their playground full of cross-field collaborations, TAKA Original spreads a design philosophy supporting the new designers of tomorrow.

Tell us something about TAKA Original.
TAKA Original is a young designer brand. Our team is made up of young designers who share similar values and aesthetic ideals for design and experimentation. Now we’ve got offices in Beijing, New York and Paris.

Who are those you make clothes for?
Instead of saying that we make clothes for others, we actually make clothes for ourselves. Our initial idea was to answer to our own desires regarding design and find a community of like-minded people with similar attraction to the designs. That being said, we make clothes for people who share our values, who are streetwear fanatics like us and dare to challenge fashion’s status quo.

Your latest collection transports people back to the nostalgia of the ’90s. What was so great about this era?
This era contained all of the best ingredients of its precedents. 60’s hippie culture, 70’s punk-rock spirit and the 80's multi-culture all paved the way for the 90s. Borders became blurry and many cultural fields started to collide with each other. The birth of film, the skateboard-cults and the increased power of hip-hop culture. This era was crucial to the creation of today’s street culture.

We are now living the fruits of the inventions of the ’90s. Nokia gsm’s grew into face recognition tablets. How does the brand use modern technology to its advantage and what has been its challenges?
Thanks to modern technology, we are able to present our products in the best possible way. But besides using it only as a tool, it became the main theme in our creative work. Working with the concept of high-tech but in an old-tech world and create a dialogue about time. We constantly balancing out what futurism means to us now and what it meant back in time. We bounce from futurism in 1999s to the 2059s and back.

Speaking industry, what do you think of the current fashion climate?
Some aspects of the fashion industry are loosening up. Design elements are becoming more diverse and a lot of cross-field cooperations and collaborations are taking place. It makes the industry a more interesting and enjoyable sphere to work in.

In what way is the TAKA brand a response to that? What does the brand want to bring?
“CREATE THE FUN” is our core concept of our design process which emphases on integrating life aesthetics into fashion design. We are continuously developing and upgrading our products and our visual identity in order to keep our contemporary spirit alive.

If you could dress anyone in full TAKA. Who would it be and why?
Albert Einstein perhaps. He’s such a great scientist, creative and interesting human being.