Bubble-Era Colors

I grew up in the deep countryside, and at eighteen, I moved to Tokyo for school—and almost immediately stepped into the world of fashion modeling.

Everything was new to me, of course, but what struck me most was the color that suddenly surrounded me. Until then, the colors in my life had only ever been three: the green of plants, the brown of soil, and the blue of sky. I call them my “countryside primary colors.”

Not knowing which way was up, I threw myself into days that were color, color, color. It felt like being swept away in a flood of every color the world had ever contained. I hadn’t even read fashion magazines properly, so maybe I simply lacked any sense of balance beyond those original three colors.
I would later become a creator myself, and that foundational sense of color has stayed with me ever since. It shows just how much our environment shapes who we become.

Setting aside the world of fashion modeling, the colors of Japan’s “bubble era”—the country’s extravagant economic boom of the late 1980s—are something anyone who lived through it will understand.
The colors of that frenzied time are nowhere to be found now, in this era of muted, dusty tones. Caught up in a whirlwind of color and sound, blown high into the sky, we felt that energy right along with it, laughing our way through it all.
We believed we’d never come back down—that we’d only keep being lifted higher and higher. I think everyone believed that, back then.

I do think these muted tones have their own beauty. But every so often, I find myself missing that carnival of color—as if an entire art supply store had been tipped over and spilled across the world.
I think we need to live in a world where our life energy never turns dull. Mix the red, the green, the yellow, all together in your heart, and keep moving forward.

I remember the finale of a runway, models walking in clothes of every color. I walk a completely different path now, but I believe every one of those paths still leads somewhere ahead of me.
It isn’t a straight road, but I think the more it curves, the more colors it gathers along the way.

The dozens of colored pencils and pens I’ve collected over the years—I don’t put them away in a box. I keep them where I can see them, so color keeps catching my eye.

I’m sure everyone has their own road to walk, and every road is full of color and sound, and becomes a path we walk together with all kinds of people.
Because only you can scatter beautiful, joyful colors freely inside your own heart.

Let’s decorate tomorrow’s colors freely, and in every color there is.