Rising from the dropout
Why I Run: Stories from Runners
Vol.3 Takashi Akuzawa Part 1
Text: Shun Sato
"Cool," "Unique coolness," "Outstanding presence"
Such voices can be heard from the runners.
ELDORESO is a brand loved by everyone from high school students to amateur runners and corporate athletes. Takashi Akuzawa is both the owner and a runner. He was a member of the Kokushikan University track and field team, aiming to run in the Hakone Ekiden, but dropped out in his third year and launched the brand after many twists and turns. Why has ELDORESO become so popular with runners? And why did Akuzawa, who had once left the world of running, return to it?
To a strong athletics school
"Failing the entrance exam for a private high school was how I got started in track and field."
Akuzawa said this with a wry smile on his face.
"I had my heart set on a public high school, but I couldn't think straight. I had failed to get into the private backup school before that, so I thought, 'Oh no, what should I do?' and asked my homeroom teacher for advice. I was on the basketball team, but I was pretty fast in the school marathon, so he told me, 'There's a school with a strong track and field team, so I'll ask them.' After a while, he recommended Kiryu Technical High School."
The challenges of joining a prestigious athletics club
Kiryu Technical High School is one of the leading athletics schools in Gunma Prefecture, and has a fierce track and field club aiming to compete in the Tokyo Metropolitan Intercollegiate Athletics Championships. Although Akuzawa had no experience in track and field, he joined the track and field club after enrolling, feeling indebted to the teacher who had helped him get into the school.
"The track and field club was surprisingly fun, as I was able to go to the Northern Kanto Tournament as an individual. However, everyone was too fast to join the relay team. In my second year of high school, the team came in seventh in the Todaiji race, but in my third year, the seniors were graduating, so I thought I might be able to become a regular. However, Suwa (Toshinari, current head coach at Jyobu University), who was a year younger than me, and all the first-year students were fast, so in the end I never became a regular in the relay and was always a reserve."
Dropping out in the third year of college
Although he was unable to run in the Miyako-daiji marathon, he wanted to run in the Hakone Ekiden in college. Although he was not a scholarship student, he was recommended to enter Kokushikan University.
"I had a disappointing experience in high school, so I was determined to run the Hakone Ekiden in university. However, when I entered the track and field club, there were a lot of people, and there were about 30 of us first-year students. There were over 100 people in total. Once practice started, you could see everyone's abilities. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make it into the qualifying team. I realized that I wasn't good enough to run the Hakone Ekiden, so halfway through my first year, I started going to group dates and going to clubs to have fun. There was nothing I could do (wry smile)."
Instead of racing on the track, he raced around the city at night, and his chances of making it onto the Hakone Ekiden qualifying team became more and more distant.
Before the summer vacation of his third year of university, Akuzawa suddenly quit the track and field club.
"I thought there was no point in continuing club activities half-heartedly, but I was determined to achieve my personal best. I practiced hard and achieved a personal best of 14 minutes 52 seconds (5000m) at the Chuo University track meet before summer. I knew I couldn't make it to Hakone, but I felt like I had given it my all, so I just quit the club. It's not that I grew to dislike track and field, but to be honest, I still don't really know the real reason why I quit (wry smile)."
After leaving the dormitory, I moved to Shimokitazawa and started working part-time cleaning a love hotel in Shinsen, Shibuya, and at a clothing store. The cleaning staff at the love hotel were interesting people, including foreigners and older women, and I could spend my free time in the day thinking about designs or playing games, so it was the best part-time job I could have.
The closed path to becoming a full-time employee
After graduating from university, she didn't get a job, but instead worked part-time at a love hotel while also starting a part-time job at Hollywood Ranch Market in Daikanyama, a popular brand since the 1980s, where she worked in product management, inspecting products imported from overseas.
"The store was really popular and I enjoyed the work. I wanted to become an employee here and work as a buyer, so I took the employee exam, which was held once every six months. It was an essay-style exam, and the topics were pretty much the same: 'What does Seirin Co., Ltd. (the company that operates Hollywood Ranch Market) mean to you?' 'What do you want to do at Seirin Co., Ltd.?' 'What do you see yourself doing at Seirin Co., Ltd. in 10 years' time?' If I wrote something different six months later, it would be a lie, so I wrote the same thing every time and ended up failing four times in a row... I was really disappointed."
Akuzawa left Hollywood Ranch Market, where he had worked for three years, and got a job at an apparel company he found in Torabayu (a job magazine). After about two years, a friend from university entered Bunka Fashion College and asked if he wanted to work in apparel with them. Thinking it sounded interesting, he and three other friends founded an apparel brand. He quit the company he had been working for after three years, started a love hotel, and pursued his dream while working three part-time jobs at the same time.
"I didn't have any money, so I worked at the love hotel to pay for my living expenses, and I bought fabrics and other things with my other part-time jobs, so even though I started an apparel brand, my main job was part-time work."
Life lessons learned over the past three years
When deciding on clothes to exhibit at the twice-yearly joint exhibition, the four girls each submitted their own designs. At the time, boyish girl styles like those seen in mini magazines were popular, so the theme was clothes that resembled that style, but Akuzawa's ideas were never adopted.
"It didn't go well at all. When four people try to make one design, the person with the loudest voice tends to be the one who pushes things, so their opinion prevails. The other two, including myself, tried to read the mood and listened, saying, 'That's right,' and made it. But we're four guys and we don't particularly like women's clothes, we can't wear them, and we didn't really understand them. We made them just because they seemed popular, but they didn't sell, so we had no money, and so there was tension among us. It was like an unpopular band. One person left, then two, and after three years, I was the only one left."
Now that I was alone, I thought about quitting, but then a friend who I was working on a joint exhibition with asked me if I wanted to join in. When I told them we were splitting up, they said, "Well, why don't you just do it on your own?"
"That's what I thought, so I decided to participate. From that point on, I made up my mind, or rather, I changed my way of thinking. After three years of being stubborn, I no longer listened to what other people had to say. I developed the idea that I didn't want to do anything other than what I wanted to do. This became the core of my approach to making things."
Hot selling underwear
In 2004, he started the label "ALDIES."
Without any particular concept or direction, I started by making caps and bags for a joint exhibition, and then made men's underwear for the next exhibition. At the time, gal boys were all the rage, so the flashy boxer shorts I made sold well. I decided to sell wholesale to a store in Shibuya 109, and since I didn't want to waste shipping fees, I stuffed my boxer shorts into a big travel backpack and was stopped by the police every time I walked around to deliver them.
"I was treated like a pervert, and the police didn't understand me, so I was almost taken away."
The sweet days of market dominance did not last long.
As flashy underwear became popular, new companies entered the market one after another, increasing the number of rivals and leading to the sale of low-priced products. "We can't compete anymore," he thought, and withdrew from the market.
14 km of trails
After that, he started making clothing for "ALDIES" and it began to be featured at festivals and in outdoor magazines. As the brand gained recognition, he had the opportunity to return to the world of running, which he had been away from since his third year of university.
"We weren't particularly making outdoor products, but we started to have an outdoor brand vibe, and we started to do business with more and more places like that. One of our clients, an outdoor shop owner, was into trail running. I had never even heard of the term trail running, and when he told me he was going to run 70 kilometers, I thought, "This guy's a weirdo" (laughs). But then he asked me to run with him, and I took part in my first 14-kilometer race. I'd done a little track and field in the past, so I thought I'd have no problem, but I was completely worn out."
Running for the first time in 16 years
Up until this point, Akuzawa hadn't run at all. It's a common pattern for track and field club members to stop running once they quit, and when Akuzawa quit, he left his shoes and clothing behind and left the dormitory, determined never to run again. But then, at age 37, he ran for the first time in 16 years, and on the way home on the highway, he suffered a cramp in the arch of his foot.
"I felt really pathetic about that... After that, the same person invited me to a trail run in Okinawa. At the time, running wear was only available in black or white, so I wanted to look different, so I made my own outfit. When I wore it to the race, some people said, 'What's that?' So I thought I might as well try making one myself, and that was the first step that led to ELDORESO."
To be continued in the second part
Akuzawa's Instagram account
https://www.instagram.com/tarzan_aqzawa/
ELDORESO Instagram Account
https://www.instagram.com/eldoreso/
