It’s an unusually warm evening for mid-October and even though everyone in Tokyo is layered and booted, I’m bare armed in my Bora Aksu organic cotton drape top when I arrive at Mihara Yasuhiro’s office / studio / exhibition (oh, how I wish People Tree had such a lovely, big space in Tokyo!)

I know Mihara from articles I’ve read about him, a footwear designer, turned men’s and women’s wear designer who has reached sparkling heights in Japan. He is the smiliest of all the very fashionable people sitting around the table. Of course, I thought he was fab when I heard about the trouble he takes to handicraft his footwear and that he is one of the first designers in Japan to use organic cotton for part of his collection, but I’d not seen him or his collection close up – both match up to expectation – totally gorgeous!
The interview starts with an ABC on Fair Trade – What is it? Why? How do people’s lives change? (Why is a fashion designer interviewing me for his blog?) Why did I start People Tree in Japan? (Mihara knows all this, he whispers, I’ve read your autobiography, it’s just for the interview!) Where do you live – Tokyo? London? Bangladesh? (Yes, yes, yes…) And he tells me how much he loves London…
Although he is a few years younger than me, Mihara was having fun and struggling to make ends meet in London just as I did. He tells me how he spent the whole night at night clubs to avoid spending money on a hotel room, slept on a park bench for a few hours each day and foraged through cardboard boxes outside the market to find a carrot or two to eat – ever ready for a recent acquaintance or friend to take him in for the night. Similarly I was working as a maid / housekeeper for a rich elderly man in Kensington in exchange for food and a room to subsidize my tiny salary at a publishing company, bought all my clothes in charity shops (because I couldn’t afford anything else) but then became homeless sleeping on friend’s floor, between pools of Doberman piss, because I confronted my employer about his buying girl prostitutes in Thailand (.. sometimes having principals is inconvenient!). I have never eaten left over market vegetables or been brought a meal by a kindly old lady… there you win heads down for boho living Mihara-san!
“I think Fair Trade is luxurious” says Mihara, when I tell him that People Tree clothing often takes 6 months to produce because it is handmade. Mihara nearly fell off his chair when his team told him we wanted him to design something for next summer’s People Tree collection 9 months before it went on sale… he started his own collection 5 months later. When I explain that Fair Trade is all about creating livelihoods for highly skilled artisans and crafts people and what fun it is to work alongside them – you can see his face light up already imagining himself there – dinner in Dhaka, jump on a sleeper train, breakfast in the village and working alongside people who love their craft. Maybe he’ll pack a tiny ‘designer’ suitcase, the kind no villager has ever seen… we will see.