It’s hard to imagine a more modest, humble and conscientious guy than Takashi Okabe. Known as Taka, he not only has (frustratingly) incredible and unique natural style, but is one of the nicest and most sincere people you could hope to spend time with. Hailing from Tokyo and getting his first taste for vintage (and black coffee) at a local vintage store when he was 13 years old, Taka has lived a life based on his passions (with the exception of a stint in the IT industry). From studying sport to becoming Director of Clutch Cafe London and co-founder of menswear brand Allevol, Taka follows his passions without compromise. We sat down with him to learn more about his journey from Tokyo to London and everything in between. It left us humbled and inspired. Thank you, Taka-San.

Name: Takashi Okabe

Occupation: Director of Clutch Cafe London / Co-Founder Allevol / Men’s File Tokyo Editor

Location: London

IG Handle: @taka.okabe / @clutchcafelondon / @allevol / @mensfilemagazine

Website: www.clutch-cafe.com / www.clutchmagjapan.com / www.allevol.com

Q: Who is Takashi Okabe? What did you study and where? Where did you grow up? What jobs did you have?)

A: My name is Taka (I started using this short name since I came to the UK, as it is easy to remember and pronounce), I was born and raised in Fukuoka in southern Japan. I was always into football (played quite competitively) and I came to England when I was 20 years old to learn football coaching!

I was studying at preparatory high school and everyone around me was studying to pass the entrance of University exam. As I played football in a National competition, I was able to go to university by playing football, not taking an entrance exam. But as I spent most of my final year of high school football in rehabilitation, I wasn’t keen to do that for 4 years (in the worst case scenario) at University. I was kind of burned out and wasn’t really sure what to do. Then my younger brother was complaining about his football coach who was actually a basketball coach, and he didn’t know what he was doing. That’s when I started helping the teacher and teaching football to kids. I found football coaching fascinating. The more time I spent teaching football, I realised that my coaching skills needed to improve, so I decided to travel around Europe (planned to visit London, Milan, Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona) to see not only how to coach, but how football culture was integrated into people’s lives.

After graduating high school, I worked really hard (sometimes 3 jobs at the time) to save money and I travelled to London for initially 3 months. I couldn’t speak English, so I decided to go to English school, which was a mistake! It was just so fun! There were so many different people from all over the world and of course it was in London. I was so shocked by how culturally diversified London was and I was also shocked by how many cute girls there were! The 3 months passed by so quickly and I decided to study a Sport Management degree. After studying English for a year, I went to Northumbria University in Newcastle for 3 years.

After graduating University, I wanted to be in the Sport industry, but somehow ended up in the IT industry. The company I worked for allowed all employees to dress down on Thursday and Friday. As I was wearing sporty clothing for the previous few years, suddenly, and desperately, I needed to have a good pair of jeans. So I went to Central London, looking for a pair of good denim that I usually could find in Japan. But I could not find a good pair, only pretty good ones from Nudie, Edwin, Evis and APC. I just wanted to have simple 501 or 505 shape selvedge jean, but I really struggled to find them. That’s when I started Allevol, which led to me working for Men’s File and Clutch Magazine.

Q: Tell us, have you always been into clothing and fashion?

A: Clothing or fashion has always been my hobby. It all started when I visited my local vintage clothing store called Miyar's (now it’s called HHG) in Sumiyoshi Fukuoka. I think it was when I was 12 or 13 years old. The shop was located 5 mins walk from my house, on my way to my primary school. So I passed by it almost everyday and when I was coming back from school, there were guys hanging out outside of the shop. Most of them were smoking, drinking and tattooed, riding Harley Davidsons or Vespas and they looked so scary and also super cool! One day, I looked the inside of the shop through the glass window and I saw all those vintage Americana goods that I’d never seen before. So I started talking about it with my friend and we gathered our courage to enter the shop when no one was around. When we entered the shop, the shop owner (Mr Sakamoto) said “Irasshai” (which means “Welcome" in Japanese) and he offered us black coffee. I had never drunk proper coffee before (it was hand dripped Ethiopian coffee!) but I didn’t want to be rude, so drunk it little by little (this may be the reason why I wanted a cafe space in Clutch Cafe, but I never thought I would open a shop…). The shop was about 8sqm and you didn’t really have space to move even your arm around. Therefore, you don’t have space to run away from Mr Sakamoto! However, I don’t actually remember what the conversations were that we had during the first visit. It must’ve been so natural and a comfortable experience, but I certainly remember the bitter black coffee taste and smell! My friend and I talked with other friends in the school and many people were fascinated to know other things, so we went back to the shop and started spending serious time with Mr Sakamoto almost everyday. That’s when he kindly introduced me to old Americana culture, like films (I watched many 50s films then!), cars, and clothing. I was so lucky to touch those vintage pieces at an early age and that’s how I become interested in fashion and clothing.

Q: You co-founded Allevol, tell us more about the brand and its product?

A: In 2005, my then girlfriend (and now wife with two kids) and I decided to start a brand called Allevol. Allevol is a combination of two words, ALL and EVOLVE. I was from Japan (and jeans were manufactured in Japan), my wife is from Slovakia (and we were making t-shirts from scratch and some technical jackets in Slovakia) and we were based in London. Everything was mixed up in a nice way to evolve forward. That’s where the brand name came from. It was just simple 5 pockets jeans in 4 different silhouettes (Edit: Oh, I would say to my younger self, start with 2 silhouettes!) in a raw denim. We exhibited at a tradeshow called To Be Confirmed (TBC) in 2006 and we had 3 trade customers (Moscow, Amsterdam, and UK). Our stockists grew little by little and we had about 20 stockists in Europe by 2009, when Lehman shock started. The problem was that we manufactured our jeans in Japan (paying in Japanese Yen) and we were getting paid in British Pounds (GBP). GBP lost more than half the value at its worst and my production costs more than doubled. We were taking advance wholesale orders and when we delivered the goods, we were actually making a loss on every pair we sold.

I stopped making jeans in 2012 but started making products in the UK. Now I am re-launching Allevol by making British vintage inspired products including some heavy outerwear jackets and simple comfortable shirts, with all items made in UK (I’m sure some products will be made in Japan soon though!)

When we were struggling with Allevol, Nick Clements (Editor in Chief of Men’s File Magazine) kindly featured my jeans in his magazine. I sent a ‘thank you’ email and we met at a cafe near Holborn. He said that he’d been following Americana culture for a long time and he would like to feature more Japanese brands. That’s when I started helping him with some translation for the magazine. In 2011 or 2012, I exhibited at Bread & Butter in Berlin and that’s when I met Mr Matsushima (Atsu-san from Clutch Magazine) for the first time. Nick and Atsu san had common friends (it’s a very small circle in this clothing industry!) and they felt that it was good time to combine strength together. They weren’t really sure what to do first and Atsu-san came up with the idea of having two magazines sealed together. That’s how I started being involved in Clutch Magazine and it’s been really successful over the last several years.

Q: You work with Men’s File and Clutch Magazine. Tell us about your day to day work for the magazines? Do you travel a lot?

A: Working for a Clutch Magazine requires me to travel around the world. We exhibit at most of Men’s Fashion trade shows every 6 months including Tokyo, London, Milan, Berlin, Paris, Florence, NY, and LA/Vegas (I wish I had a bit of time to visit all those football pitches!). We also attend some denim fabric trade shows like Kingpins and Denim Premier Vision.

After exhibiting at all those trade shows and events, Atsu-san had an idea of curating what we believe in. Something that Clutch Magazine was all about, and that’s when we decided to open Clutch Cafe. We have everything at Clutch Cafe (although it is still in progress!); good clothing, good coffee, good vintage furniture, and most importantly good magazines. Now that we have settled pretty well for the first two years of business, we would like to expand this venture in the future.

“ When I go to Northern England, I visit Jojo at Rag Parade and probably buy British made outerwear. When I visit Melissa from Stock Vintage in New York, then I will try to look for Americana products. When I visit Paris, I will see Gautier from Le Vif or Paul from Brut Clothing, and probably buy something French.”

TAKASHI OKABE

Q: You have many different roles, tell us how do you spend your time?

A: I currently work for Clutch Magazine Japan. My role entails advertising and sales, magazine distribution and promotion outside of Japan, and photography. Many different shoes at the same time! I also work for Men’s File magazine as the Tokyo editor (although as my boss Nick Clements travels to Japan twice a year for CC show now, I only work a small amount). Clutch Magazine opened Clutch Cafe in February 2018 in London and I am the Director of the company with Atsu-san (Editor in Chief of Clutch Magazine). I am also co-founder (with my girlfriend and now wife) of the clothing brand ALLEVOL which was established in 2005.

I wake up pretty early in the morning, to work with Japan time. Then I often go to Clutch Cafe and deal with European customers. Luckily, I don’t need to deal with the West Coast in the USA as there is a California team of Clutch Magazine in LA!

Q: What would you tell your younger self?

A: Travel more to see the world

Q: What is your favourite part of what you do?

A: Meeting interesting people.

Q: What was the last item of clothing you bought?

A: I bought an oversized open collar shirt from Jelado for SS20. And of course you can buy at Clutch Cafe here.

Q: What is your best vintage purchase?

A: It’s hard to decide the best purchase to be quite honest. But when I travel, I try to visit vintage stores. So when I go to Northern England, I visit Jojo at Rag Parade and probably buy British made outerwear. When I visit Melissa from Stock Vintage in New York, then I will try to look for Americana products. When I visit Paris, I will see Gautier from Le Vif or Paul from Brut Clothing, and probably buy something French. When I go to LA, I visit the Rose Bowl, and enjoy all the cool Californian vintage items. They are all great and I cannot just simply decide on one best piece!

Q: What are your favourite Japanese vintage stores?

A: Hard to say, but if you are in Tokyo and looking for Americana; Ber Ber Jin or Fake Alpha. If you are in western part of Japan and looking for European; Capri, Mitsuru or Acadia

Q: Where is the best flea market in Tokyo?

A: A brother publication of Clutch Magazine called 2nd Magazine organise a flea market every year. As the sellers are well curated by the 2nd Magazine editors, the quality of the items being sold are very good and reasonable.

Q: Who or what inspires you?

A: Again, those interesting people inspire me a lot. Because of my work, I am extremely lucky to visit mills, artist’s ateliers, shops, factories and so on. What they are thinking, why they are doing what they are doing, the way they are doing it etc. really inspires me. I once visited a small indigo dye fabric mill and the gentleman was hand-dipping the yarns. The movement was just so perfect, it was so smooth but at the same time very sharp.

If we’re talking about football, I love Xabi Alonso (Spanish footballer), his long passes ware so beautiful…!

Q: How many languages do you speak?

A: Japanese, English (a bit) and Slovak (very very tiny bit).

Q: Where is the most inspiring place you have been?

A: Actually I haven’t been anywhere exotic, like Tanzania, Peru or Tibet. So those are actually on my radar!

Q: Where is your favourite Hotel?

A: I’m not a luxury hotel person but I like the Palihouse in Santa Monica. I love their dining/reception room! I’d love to stay in Tenku in Kagoshima, maybe one day…

Q: Coffee or Tea?

A: Tea, leave the bag in the cup and add lots of milk…(used to be full fat milk, but now Oatly!)

Q: Tell us one thing that people might not know about you?

A: My dream is to own football team (it could be a small local team!). I guess I’m learning how I might do this everyday at Clutch Cafe, like budgeting, managing cashflow, assembling a team, etc.

Q: If you were a super hero, what super powers would you have?

A: I would probably be Spider Man, as my kids love Spider Man.

Q: What would you do if you won the lottery?

A: I have never thought of it, as I don’t usually buy a ticket. I probably wouldn’t like to win the biggest prize, as it messes up your life. But winning £5,000 would be nice for a family holiday.