Having only visited London once before, we were thrilled when Yohei Goto, the founder and designer of Jelado decided to pay us a visit and hold a small Jelado pop-up in store. It was a whirlwind visit, and knowing how much of a vintage lover he is, we managed to find the time visit vintage markets in East London, as well as a day trip to Paris where we visited Port de Clignacourt. His delight was there to see as he browsed the vintage rails, picking out interesting pieces that you could see him potentially design for his next collection. This is a sign of a true collector, and an obsessive; someone who constantly thinks about clothing and materials.
Having started a vintage clothing store in Tokyo at the age of 26, when "the Vintage Boom started to cool off and less people started to respect vintage and the shops that sold it". Obviously you cannot make vintage and as the vintage supply was beginning to run dry and so Jelado was born, "I thought to myself, to keep doing this for over 30 years, it's going to be hard and I need to eat! Plus, it’s also hard to find the perfect size and I wanted to make things that I could wear."
As a collector it is hard to pinpoint a favourite piece of vintage. For Goto san, each garment is used as an inspiration piece and whilst not typically trained as a 'designer' as such, in order to conceive an idea and to "get more experience in designing clothes, I visited the US every year for 5 years and bought vintage clothes for inspiration. Throughout the years I learnt a lot through looking closely at what I’d bought, choices of fabric, fit, small details from each era".
For AW18 Jelado designed the Salem Coat. The piece was based on an early 1920's blanket coat that Goto san found on one of his trips to the US in 2017. He had made a promise to himself to not re-produce another blanket coat but when he laid eyes on the original he "was so shocked and impressed because I’d never seen such a thing in black and white before, I thought it was so cool that I had to reproduce it for this year". He duly bought it for $3000 and produced a beautiful homage to the original and something that we were truly proud to stock.
This dedication and obsessive manner of researching and developing ideas represents a man deeply passionate about vintage clothing, limited production and quality, timeless design.
Many thanks to Goto san for taking the time to come over and visit.