HOW WP STORE BROUGHT JAPANESE STREETWEAR TO ITALY

If the appeal of Japanese fashion had begun to influence European mainstream culture only a few years ago - with the explosion of streetwear on the world’s catwalks shortly after the beginning of the 2010s - Japanese designers had already created their own culture and aesthetic language in the' 70s and '80s, leading them to create streetwear of the highest quality, with soft lines and featuring original and often exaggerated accents, artfully mixed with a reinterpretation of Western design themes. And among all these companies, the brands that WP Store brought to Italy were three - Beams +, Nanamica and Goldwin. Beams Plus  The first Beams store, named Beams Harajuku, was opened in Tokyo in 1976 by Etsuzo Shitara. Initially, the tiny shop mimicked the look of an American student dorm room and mainly sold preppy-style clothing such as varsity jackets, but also lifestyle items. Inspiration from the world of the American Ivy League translated for the Japanese market was a huge success, also thanks to a number of collaborations with Popeye magazine. Just a year after the opening of the first store, a second store opened in Shibuya, concurrently with the launch of new lines and collaborations that led to the creation in the early ‘80s of International Gallery Beams. This was a concept store that was also an art gallery and which, in the wake of the success that the great Japanese designers were enjoying in Europe, helped Beams to overcome the crisis of 1989. Finally, ten years later, Beams Plus was started, a brand dedicated solely to the golden age of preppy style, that is, between the ‘40s and ‘60s. Success was immediate but the brand remained famous only in Japan for the following years until international retailers such as WP Store and Selfridges discovered it, taking it all over the world. Nanamica Nanamica is a casualwear brand focused on the outdoors founded in Tokyo by Eiichiro Homma and Takashi Imaki in 2003. After working for Helly Hansen and Goldwin, Homma became a high-performance sportswear expert and began experimenting with materials such as Gore-Tex, which later became one of his specialties. The brand name, which means "House of the Seven Seas", expresses its adventurous aesthetic, which while originating from a techwear context, did not intend giving up the originality of its designs. Homma’s secret is a very precise knowledge of all the parts and functions of each garment, as well as an ability to take vintage-looking garments and modernize them by creating classics full of hidden details and innovative materials.Goldwin From uniforms for the Olympics to uniforms for the Japanese astronauts of the International Space Station, Goldwin has become an international synonym for quality techwear not only in its native country but also in America and Europe. In the course of seven decades of history Goldwin has been the main protagonist of the gorpcore movement in Japan. The brand’s success at home was based on founder Tosaku Nishida’s foresight, who anticipated the imminent winter sports boom in Japan and began producing high performance technical apparel that found immense success on the market. In the 90s, after a series of significant successes, the brand began its international expansion which took it to Italy, thanks to WP Store. Over the years, the brand has become synonymous with high technical excellence and material research, culminating in the creation of the bio-based fabric, Brewed Protein fibre.