In line with his solo menswear show in Paris, Takahashi released a 20-minute documentary following the creation of his Spring/Summer collection titled “The New Warriors”, drawing on themes related to the 1979 action film “The Warriors”. In 2018, the designer focused all efforts on his menswear collections, stepping away from producing womenswear. The designer does however have a practical side, he chose to shoot a lookbook in freezing temperatures to prove the effectiveness of his outerwear and many of his designs have eminently practical design features. The designer has staged shows with identical twins in almost identical clothing, created jackets with branches protruding from them and styled models with flower arrangements covering their faces. Takahashi seeks to challenge preconceived notions both in his designs, and their presentation. Today Takahasi’s aesthetic remains subversive but is infused with a technicality and clarity lacking in early collections. In its infancy, Undercover was influenced by Punk, and ripped Ts and patched leather jackets were the mainstays of the collection. Additionally, Takahashi has collaborated with Uniqlo to create Uniqlo Undercover, since 2011, Supreme in 2016 and most recently lent its street style edge to Valentino’s Fall/Winter 2019 collection. Amember of Tokyo’s Team GIRA running club, the designer creates activewear lines for both men and women under the label Nike x Undercover Gyakusou, with the sportswear giant. To be fair, some businesses don't want their staff to be too aggressive, but from our experiences it didn't seem like many sales clerks were that interested in making a sale.Jun Takahashi founded his Undercover label in 1993, whilst studying at the Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo, showing in Paris for the first time by 2002. I learned the quickest way to get service is to ask for it. Now, we did go into a few other stores and had more positive customer service experiences, but of the 20+ stores we visited over the span of a couple of days - not one "wowed" us. How to get the 'wow' factor in customer service She didn't ask if I was looking for anything specific, and didn't show me any other suit jackets. It took 12 minutes before anyone came up to me. I was admiring a suit jacket to see how long it would take for one of the three sales clerks to offer help. In a women's clothing store, we were greeted as soon as we walked into the store. You won't see this in my series because it turns out the button camera moved out of place, and as a result, both sales clerks were out of frame. The other stayed sitting, and didn't say anything, smile, or offer help. ![]() One of them got up and said 'hello' when my cameraman got within five feet of him. They were sitting down on chairs in the middle of the store. There were two young men working in a men's clothing store we went into. She never left her desk once, or offered any help. I deliberately stood by the jewelry counter the entire time we were in the store, which was about 10 minutes. ![]() She looked up when we walked in, but didn't say anything. In another women's clothing store, the sales lady was sitting at a desk reading a magazine. After a few minutes of being the only people in the store, she said to me, "You're just browsing, right? You don't need any help?" No, I guess not. The sales lady was having her lunch at the time, so she didn't even get up. We went in anyway, and as I expected, didn't get a lot of attention. I was casually dressed that day, and certainly didn't look like I belonged in a high-end women's clothing boutique. ![]() He didn't offer to show me any other coats, so we left. I asked if there was a smaller size he said 'no' and that was it. That's when a salesperson came to help us. After ten minutes of browsing, I asked my cameraman to hand me a coat (it was too high for me to reach). ![]() The next store we went into was a small clothing store. The staff seemed to be more concerned with straightening shelves than helping their customers. We deliberately looked at items that sales clerks were standing next to we even followed one around for a few minutes to see if she would offer help. Nobody said 'hello,' nobody asked if we needed help the entire time we were there. We went into a busy accessories store, and walked around for 15 minutes. Here were some of our experiences on a Wednesday afternoon: Straightening shelves, not serving customers We wanted to see how long it would take for people to greet us, offer help, and how friendly/knowledgeable they were. We were worried people would be suspicious (He had to stand still and basically appear as though he wasn't staring) but then again - why would anyone think we have a hidden camera on us? It had to be worn at a perfect angle to capture the right images. My cameraman wore a button camera that blended into his shirt. We decided to go shopping with a hidden camera to see what kind of service we would get.
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