KIICHIRO KURATA
UNRIVALED / LET IT RIDE

ELT, the legendary shop that led the Tokyo street scene with an independent style since before the word “Ura-Hara” (Harajuku Backstreets) existed. The original brands Let it Ride and Unrivaled expanded into superior collaborations with names such as goodenough, porter, shantii, tricker’s, and Visvim. With extremely little media exposure, he’s continued making clothes with a year-round feeling of lushness to this very day. Clothing forged in a studio surrounded by things with a sensitive feel reminds us of that initial impulse. An unexplainable sense that cuts through the ages, that’s the fashion sense of ELT Design’s Kiichiro Kurata.

Whether it’s clothes or whatever, I don’t divide rockabilly and 50’s genre stuff. I like Chet Baker and Tom Waits and Django, and I like Japanese music too.

My youth was around the early to mid-80’s, around when *The Mods had went major in Tokyo. I liked *Stray Cats when they were popular but I feel like people that are into clothes didn’t listen to stuff like that much. So I listened to it alone in secret. [Laughs] I went record shopping to check out the visuals on the jackets, around that time it was normal to pre-order records. Whether it’s clothes or whatever, I don’t divide rockabilly and 50’s genre stuff. I like *Chet Baker and *Tom Waits and *Django, and I like Japanese music too.

I like way too much stuff so in a sense it was like not getting totally into one thing. Since long ago I had a sense like I didn’t feel it was necessary to get totally into something and it was okay to choose what to like or not.

I was strongly influenced by Europe in the 80’s and then started leaning towards America in the 90’s. So it wasn’t just America from nothing, it wasn’t just straight up American because I went through a European phase in the 80’s. There were a lot of people around me that liked clothes so they taught me about them and I started shopping because of that. In high school it was Euro-style, like *Armani jeans or like *Marithé+François Girbaud from France. So I liked 50’s stuff like the *Cream Soda shop but it but it wasn’t like an obsession.

I like way too much stuff so in a sense it was like not getting totally into one thing. Since long ago I had a sense like I didn’t feel it was necessary to get totally into something and it was okay to choose what to like or not. I even had to make this *Roland *RE-201 be like a *Fender *Bassman. Just having it doesn’t mean anything. [Laughs] It’s not reasonable to say the amp face is cool.