"The store gradually attracted more traffic, and as society’s perception of us began to change, Harajuku itself underwent a rebirth. We moved offices quite a bit in Harajuku back then. It wouldn’t be worth comparing it to what we have now, but by the time we moved to an office near Takeshita-Guchi the structure of the company had already been established. SKATETHING and MANKEY, his classmate at Bunka Fashion College, would line up their desks side-by-side, and that was the exact point in time when we were solidly incorporated. I thought if we were going to do this right, we might as well do it like a proper outfit. But that didn’t mean we had a distinctive brand concept yet. As long as the people closest to us were having a good time, I was happy. Back in those days everything was hand-screened. After ordering the raw t-shirts, we brought them over to the factory along with SK8THING’s design and explained the concept in person. A few days later we would bring back the finished products to Harajuku and distribute them to friends, and only then would we line them up at the storefront. That was so much fun and we couldn’t get enough of it; everyone around us was just having a blast- we always had something going on every single day. For much of society, we were just a bunch of slacker kids, but yes, what we had done was unprecedented and unthinkable because we had managed to build our own store and identity from scratch and, changed Harajuku in the process."