Purple Magazine
— Purple #43 S/S 2025
The Tokyo Diary Issue
kunichi nomura
text
by AARON ROSE
portraits
by WATARU FUKAYA
Known to his friends as Kun, he is the soul of Tokyo nightlife. In addition to being a vibrant figure on the city’s social scene, Kun is an art director, actor, and DJ.
The first time I met Kunichi Nomura, he pulled up alongside a busy sidewalk in Shibuya, driving a yellow convertible Mini Moke, a miniature British jeep so small it could almost be a toy. “Aaron-san!” he screamed, his head towering above the windshield. He was wearing his signature Moscot sunglasses. Slicked hair. A brat-pack smirk. He was the epitome of a Japanese James Dean. A stud. An enigma. I was in Tokyo producing an exhibition at Laforet Museum, and Kun (as Kunichi’s friends call him) was to be the project manager. I could tell immediately, though, that with Kun, there is much more than meets the eye. Over the years, I’ve come to know more about him and realized that he is the purest definition of a modern-day creative polymath. His list of professional accomplishments is impressive. In addition to being an event producer, he has worked as an actor (his first role was in Sofia Coppola’s film Lost in Translation), and he played a part in and cowrote Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs. He’s a DJ and club promoter. He’s also a frequent collaborator with some of the world’s largest streetwear brands. He designs retail interiors and works as a radio host. As if that wasn’t enough, he’s a prolific writer for various Japanese and international fashion and culture magazines, and has worked as the editor of the famed Tokyo magazine Studio Voice for many years. So, yeah. Kunichi Nomura is a very busy guy.
When I ask him about his roots and what influenced him to become such a creative and ambitious personality, he claims, quite simply: “It was BMX, skateboarding, and music.” He states that these are a few of the things he discovered as a teenager that changed his life. Those subcultures got him excited about fashion and art. “You know, I like changing the parts on things,” he says. “When I was young, I’d scribble something on my skateboard, adding little personal touches. That was really the first creative thing I did. Then I’d chop my trousers like some skaters in the magazines.” This was all very simple, he says. A love of the underground and DIY cultures from his youth led him to a career without limits. It’s important to him that I make clear he’s always enjoyed be- ing behind the scenes rather than in the spotlight: “I am not the artist. I can’t make things from scratch, but adding a personal feeling to things is my specialty, and that applies to everything I do, I guess.”
Nomura was born in Tokyo and, after graduating from high school, moved to Texas for a brief time. He then spent a few years backpacking around Europe and Asia. In 1999, when he arrived back in Japan, he opened a small beach café called Sputnik, which he ran until 2005. Through this and other endeavors, including buying a double-decker bus from London and throwing dance parties with skaters and DJs across Japan, he would go on to meet many of today’s global pop culture leaders — many of whom have become lifelong friends. At the time of writing, Rahm Emanuel was the US ambassador to Japan, but I would argue that Kun has held this as an unofficial shadow post for the past two decades. Over the years, he’s become a global diplomat for artists and scene makers across the world. Anyone working in the global creative culture who comes to Japan will, without a doubt, end up intersecting with Kun. On any given night in Tokyo, he can be seen in some out-of-the-way restaurant, tucked into a private booth with the likes of Harry Styles or James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, or partying until the wee hours of the night with Dua Lipa. Yet, it’s not uncommon to find him partying all night in a dingy basement with local underground kids half his age. He keeps his hand on the pulse of the culture wherever he goes.
Even though he has a reputation as a nightlife king, he still keeps himself incredibly busy with projects large and small. When I ask him why he does so many different things, his answer is simple. “People are always asking me what’s my main job or if I’m from a wealthy family,” he says, “but I believe no job is too small. That’s always been my policy. I like to do small, fun projects, and I like making clothing or shoes with a brand.” I reply that it’s hard to make money that way, to which he says: “They’re fun projects. Sure, I don’t really make money on the things I work on because my intention is always to keep the prices affordable.” A good case in point for this philosophy is a recent limited-edition collaboration between Tripster, his interior design company, and Vans shoes. Rather than making the shoes available only to the bespoke market, as most brands do, Kun insisted that they also be available at a low cost through ABC-Mart, a Japanese discount store. It’s a proletarian approach to fashion that is rarely seen these days. His philosophy plays back to his roots in the underground. He believes nice things should be accessible. He claims his income comes from other sources: “I make money with some big corporate jobs, but I don’t tell the public about those.”
Behind his fun-loving image, Nomura has an obsession for historical architecture and fashion. He’s almost a walking, talking encyclopedia on these subjects. Because he sits in such a unique cultural place between the West and Japan, I couldn’t help but ask him about the influence of American and European cultures on his country. For many years, Japanese youth culture has been obsessed with vintage products. If you went to a shop in Tokyo, it was almost guaranteed that you would find the best examples of American vintage there. However, over the past decade, I’ve found this has changed. Japanese brands that were once influenced by Western products have perfected the local model.
Many Japanese brands now design and manufacture clothing that’s much better than the things that influenced them — so much so that the tables have turned, and many American brands now look to Japan for inspiration. Kun responds to this by saying: “I guess we’re good at finding the value in something others don’t see, like American workwear: a long time ago, nobody really cared about it in the US.” I ask him why. “I don’t really know,” he says. “It’s the same with air-cooled Porsches or vintage hi-fi. When everyone was throwing them away, there were collectors here who would dig deeply for them. Now many Americans come here to buy things from Japan. I think it’s because we analyze them and categorize them. We revalue them. I guess that’s why.”
For today’s social media generation, holding many jobs is not uncommon. All you need to do is change your Instagram bio, and the world believes that’s your job. It wasn’t always that easy, though. When Kun was growing up, doing many things was not appreciated — people did not take you seriously. “Doing one thing ends up being boring,” he says. “Also, when you do only one thing, you end up getting involved in the industry’s politics. By doing many things, I always have the choice to say no.” Wise words, and it’s always been strange to me that more people haven’t understood this over the years. The days of being overspecialized is a 20th-century concept that needs to be rethought. “Freedom doesn’t necessarily mean doing what you love or being independent,” he says. “Freedom is the right to say no to offers if you don’t want them. My life as me only happens once! Working like I do makes me feel I’m always living a few different lives at once. That’s all because of doing many things, which is great!”
END
