At Playtime Paris last weekend, on January 25th I had the pleasure of interviewing Kay Sakaguchi, organizer of Playtime Tokyo and head of Picaflor Japan.
I’ve always been curious about kids’ fashion from Japan, and hope to visit Playtime Tokyo shortly. Kay Sakaguchi explained to me how the demand for kids’ fashion in Japan has been changing. In the past, everyone was looking for the same styles. Today, kids in Japan have their style and want to look different than everyone else.
Kay also explained to me that most Japanese purchase clothing at department and chain stores. At Playtime Tokyo designers have the opportunity to meet these major buyers from Japanese department and chain stores.
At the 9th edition of Playtime Tokyo that took place in August 2013, 90 designers exhibited their Spring/Summer 2014 collection to over 2000 visitors. 10% of visitors come from outside of Japan including Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, and a smaller number of European and Australian visitors.
Read Interview with Kay Sakaguchi Organizer of Playtime Tokyo
“I’ve been Director of Playtime Tokyo since the beginning. We created a Japanese company, Picaflor Japan Company Ltd. for organizing Playtime Tokyo. I’ve worked in baby, children, kids & maternity wear for over 30 years.
Kids fashion is very changed. As we said before everybody chose the same style. But now kids want to be different from other people. Now we have almost 10% of our visitors are foreigners: Korean, Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Chinese, and sometimes European, and also Australian, and many other countries.
Many people go to buy their purchases in department stores, and we have almost every department store buyer is coming to Playtime Tokyo, and many chain store buyers also. So many, many people say for a person who works in this sector, they must go to Playtime Tokyo.” – Kay Sakaguchi, Playtime Tokyo
Thanks to Kay Sakaguchi for the video interview at Playtime Paris. I’m looking forward to the upcoming Winter edition of Playtime Tokyo to take place on February 25-27, 2014.
