VOICES
鈴木 竹彦
In 1996, he joined BEAMS as a part-time employee. He is currently the head of men's casual wear buyers and the apparel director of BEAMS JAPAN. While gaining experience as a sales associate at flagship stores such as "BEAMS Harajuku," he has created numerous hit products and long-selling staple items through planning meetings. Known for his witty planning, he is the backbone of the buyers, nicknamed "BEAMS' Ikkyu-san." He also has a hidden side as an artist.
Keita Kobayashi
Born in Fukui Prefecture in 1989. Fascinated by America since junior high school, he studied abroad in Seattle at the age of 20. After graduating from university, he moved to Toronto, Canada, where he spent his days wandering around while learning coffee making. He joined BEAMS in 2015 and has been a men's casual buyer since 2019. His hobbies include eating and drinking, and he has a deep affection for his 1995 Mercedes-Benz W124.
Ryosuke Nozaki
Born in Tokyo in 1991. Influenced by music from a young age, he was heavily influenced by 90s East Coast hip-hop. Fashion was also greatly influenced by it, and even now, the imagination of that era is incorporated into the core of his outfits. He joined BEAMS in 2014. After working as a sales associate at three stores in Tokyo, he became a buyer in 2021.
Chapter 1
A symbol of America's foundation
Respect for existence
The team's conversation didn't start with Timberland's history or product knowledge, but rather with each individual's personal experiences.
Suzuki: The image is like the old POPEYE style, right? American casual with 3-eye shoes.
Kobayashi: My first pair of boots were 6 inches when I was in high school, and I used to wear Timberlands with my school uniform.
Nozaki: I remember being more connected to the hip-hop vibe, but there was a trend where wearing 6-inch boots with your school uniform was considered cool. Wearing them gave you a street vibe.
Suzuki: When I went to San Francisco, I really got a sense of the real thing there. People wearing orange vests were casually wearing yellow boots.
What's interesting is that even though everyone's starting points in terms of generation and culture differ, their conversations ultimately converge on the same point. Timberland as authentic American workwear, and Timberland as something that street culture has embraced and made its own. Both of these coexist seamlessly as a "style" within BEAMS. That's why, even with past Special order, they never neglected the core of the brand in order to aim solely for novelty.
Suzuki: It's no good to ignore Timberland when it comes to manufacturing. Our style is to retain that essence while reinterpreting it in a way that's uniquely BEAMS.
Kobayashi: That's right. What we were conscious of was the influence of the 90s movement, and our respect for their archives and originals.
That attitude remained unchanged, even though this was their first global project. In fact, precisely because it was their 50th anniversary, their approach became even more straightforward and sincere.
Chapter 2
The breakthrough was achieved with "one pair of pants"
The initial policy shared within the team was very simple.
Suzuki: For the 50th anniversary, we all shared the feeling that we wanted to release our representative work. We couldn't think of anything other than a 6-inch record.
However, they didn't immediately arrive at the current form. In the initial draft, they considered a slip-on design, and they had a rough concept even before heading to the site, but instead of solidifying the final form and pushing it through, they deliberately left some room for improvement when bringing it to Timberland.
Nozaki: For apparel, we created a mood board and thought about it while looking at the archives. We solidified the basics, but didn't decide on the specifications until we had the ingredients and then considered how to change direction.
The term "ingredients" might accurately describe this creative process. What we prepared wasn't the answer itself, but the materials to arrive at the answer. We brought in archival photographs from the 90s, products that evoke the atmosphere of that time, and hints for color and balance. We then compared these with the other party's archives, exploring how far we should go.
The apparel division of VF Corporation is based in the Swiss countryside town of Stabio. Special order meeting there was anything but straightforward. Suzuki quickly sketched out illustrations and notes, sharing them in real time and going through a process of trial and error. While the finished product had a refined finish, the process leading up to it involved quite a bit of hands-on interaction.
A major turning point on the scene was the existence of a single pair of pants.
Kobayashi: I think a lot of people were wondering, "How do we end up with these pants...?"
Suzuki: We couldn't decide on Special order details until about halfway through the process, and we ended up deciding on the pants first.
Nozaki: You mean the one with the three-stage length change, right? It has that early Y2K vibe. We thought, "This is great!" and then we thought it would be nice if it had that earthy feel that's characteristic of Timberland, but in denim. That's when things really took off.
There was fatigue. There was jet lag. But even so, there was a live, spontaneous feeling to seeing things on the spot, talking about them on the spot, and making decisions on the spot.
These pants serve as a bridge between the yellow boots and the top. Refining and modernizing existing shapes for the modern era is truly the hallmark of BEAMS. The decisive design of the pants also had a major impact on the blouson, which was proposed in a boxy shape to overcome the inherent difficulty of a medium length, and adopted a design that allows the length to be transformed.
Nozaki: I was really tired, but I probably wouldn't have been able to do it without that time.
Kobayashi: In the second half, everyone was completely exhausted, but when those pants came out, it ignited a fire in us, and we thought, "If we're going to do this, it might be fun to go this far."
How should we approach our representative works? To what extent should we change them, and what should we preserve? The answers to these questions are not found solely in the logic of the conference room, but rather in conversations like these, held in front of the archives.
Chapter 3
by fashion lovers
A collection for fashion lovers
This Special order with Timberland wasn't a pre-planned project; it was a process of refinement through trial and error. That's why the sense of satisfaction upon completion was all the greater.
The collection's signature "6-inch Yellow Boots" feature a special ring boot design instead of the iconic lace-up style. This detail has become a symbolic design language for Special order, and the same design is also used for the cap adjuster and belt.
What impressed Suzuki most was the attitude of Timberland, who collaborated with him to create the product.
Suzuki: We talked about clothes quite a bit, didn't we? Not in the business talk you'd expect from a big corporation, but purely because we love fashion. There were a lot of people with a similar vibe to BEAMS members, and that made me happy.
Kobayashi: There was a moment when I saw the leather jacket Take-san was wearing and thought, "Wow, that's really cool. Where did you get it?"
This collection, born from the layers of conversations among such fashion enthusiasts, is a full package that deliberately retains the good old-fashioned, earthy feel of Timberland. Respect for the original permeates every item, and it would not have been possible to reach its final form without carefully and thoroughly deciphering the brand's history and context over time.
The conversation eventually returned to reminiscing about their experiences there.
Suzuki: The planning meeting was so intense that I don't even remember when it was held or the name of the place.
Kobayashi: You remember that we ate some delicious gnocchi, right? (laughs)
*The item images in this article are of prototypes. Please refer to the information below for the final product specifications.
Timberland × BEAMS
