Loic Bizel, originally from France, is the founder of FashionInJapan.com, a trendspotting resource focused on Japanese developments. The site shares fresh street fashion photos of the latest trends, a monthly newsletter, “it” keywords of the season, and as of this October, a Season Report. In addition to providing online content, Loic Bizel leads Tokyo Fashion Tours for visiting designers and professionals. Fashion in Japan also has a future book in the works, which will showcase the evolution of different trends.
In honor of launching its new ‘Season Report,’ Loic Bizel was featured on fashionoffice.org with some Q&A.
Among other things, Bizel discusses how the business started and grew…
“The concept was to bring a C to B (Consumers to Business) website, where companies like designers, brands, buyers, makers,… would subscribe to have access to the 800 monthly updated streets and store pictures. From February 2008, we decided to open www.FashioninJapan.com to the public, making it free access and selling advertising. Since then, we have 2.5 million page views per month and over 12,000 subscribers to our monthly newsletter.”
… As well as how he goes about snapping street fashion shots:
“Before starting taking pictures, I watch and observe for about 30 minutes to spot the most popular trends. Then I choose the most representative people in term of total outfit from apparel to shoes, bags and hats.”
Bizel also shares his method for finding top fashion keywords for a certain season, which involves scanning stores, streets, magazines, and catalogs. He notes that while female sartorial trends move quickly and are very volatile, “men’s trends are more evolutive with a mix of different trends or styles.”
Ah, it’s all so interesting!
Loic Bizel was obliging enough to answer my own questions as well:
How did you get started in the Japanese fashion industry?
I came here first to distribute shoes brands from Europe. We were selling to all the select stores, the department stores and doing collaboration products with brands like Issey Mikake.
Why did you decide to go into fashion and trend research?
Because many foreign companies were asking me to show them the best trends, stores and explain it.
What are the most difficult aspects of your work?
Most difficult are the Tokyo Fashion Tour because I need to be always aware of new stores or best stores, and also because the Tokyo Fashion Tour means 8 or 9 hours of walking around the streets and stores while explaining the trends, the Japanese consumers profile…
What do you find most rewarding?
The most rewarding is that I did 50 days of Fashion Tour in 2008 and that I meet very interesting people.
Do you have any advice for aspiring coolhunters?
To be always outside and feel the trends!
~*~
Overall, Loic Bizel a coolhunter in the truest sense in that his profession has an exclusive focus on identifying, exploring, and sharing trends (related to clothing in Japan, in this case). He shares that trend spotting does not involve just one method of information gathering (e.g. internet searching or walking the streets), but rather a lot of different methods combined (reading magazines and catalogs, pouring over street fashion shops, checking out the stores etc…).
Loic Bizel also gives some great street fashion photography tips- I had a habit of just snapping like crazy once I got in a good spot, but in the future, I think I’ll take a page from Bizel’s book and take time to identify the dominant trends before I start shooting.
I hope you learned just as much from the Q&A as I did! Loic Bizel sure does interesting work, and I strongly recommend checking out (and RSSing) Fashion in Japan to get in on the awesome street fashion updates!
[Thanks Loic!]
