Japan Photo Diary

by Emily DeLong | 24 April 18

If you're on our email newsletter or follow along with our Instagram Stories, you know that I recently returned from the most incredible trip to Japan. The people, the food, the gardens, the architecture, the culture — all of it was so immensely inspiring, and the abrupt change in scenery, culture, and language (Arkansas and Japan are just about as different as it gets, in many ways) was just what I needed.  My two-week trip was definitely not long enough!

I assumed I would come back from Japan brimming with inspiration for new designs and fabrics and the like, and while I did pick up a lot of ideas (street fashion in Japan is amazing, in case you were wondering), the inspiration that came to me was very subtle in nature. Tiny shrines hidden in busy city centers, fronts of urban homes surrounded by potted plants and greenery, the quiet that existed even in the biggest of cities — it was the tiny little moments of everyday life that affected me most profoundly during my trip and whose subtleties I brought back home with me. I didn't exactly develop any new ideas about clothing and design so much as solidify some of the ones that had sprouted deep within me; I didn't so much learn a new way of doing things so much as learn to respect the processes already in place.

Below is a selection of photos from my trip — mostly of scenery, and a few of me wearing pieces from our SS18 collection. (I was going to take more, but my camera-shyness got the best of me.) Hope you enjoy, and if you are ever considering traveling to Japan, two words of advice 1) Do it! and 2) Please take me with you!