I finally managed upload my recording of the "Emily Temple Cute's Pasta Kitchen" panel from Naka-kon this year. The guests from Emily Temple Cute and Melody BasKet, Ohashi-san and Abe-san, provided a behind the scenes look at the designing and manufacturing process for these brands. The presentation included a look at design sketches, rejected colorways, design mock-ups, and a video from the factory where their designs are produced.
There is a full English transcript of the recording below the cut. Unfortunately, I was unable to transcribe the guests' original Japanese responses due to my own lack of fluency in the language.
Suzanne: Hello and welcome everybody to Emily Temple Cute’s Pasta Kitchen. I was told to let everybody know, for those wanting to participate in the stamp rally, there’s stamps near the door that you can stamp on the way out…with a helpful guy back there and a lil fancy stamp rally sign — Look at his little stamp dance!
We are joined here by the CEO of Emily Temple Cute, Abe-san, as well as Emily Temple Cute’s lead designer, Ohashi-san, and I think everyone here is in for a special treat because we are going to get a peek behind the curtain and they are going to outline how the proverbial pasta is made. They are going to go into all the steps that they go in as far as conceptualizing, designing, planning, patterning, manufacturing – just all of the details, so I think that is a real special treat.
And here we have an overview of the steps of production and so we’ll allow our guests here to elaborate on that.
They’ve outlined seven steps in which all of the slides are going to be going over those: planning, designing, pattern-making, sample-making, preparation for the manufacturer, the actual manufacturing process, inspection/touch-up, and dispatch and marketing. So we’ll be going into detail on all of those.
And here is a general flowchart of all the steps involved in that process.
Ohashi-san: Hello! So, I’m not the designer, I’m the lead director. I consult with the designer about the direction we’re going in terms of the overall concept and how we decide to go forward with a design. The designer gives several concept proposals, several ideas, and, basically, the ideal design is picked out from several of those suggestions and we move forward from there.
I would like to go ahead and in this slide introduce something that is on display here at the con at the shop. This is the design concept for one of the pieces of clothing that’s sold there and I would like to go through the whole flow of how it was created.
So, for Emily Temple Cute designs, we always go with a strawberry motif. For this year, we kind-of had to think quite a bit about which sort of strawberry we were going to go with. For this year, we wanted to go with the shape of a dress as shown on the right-hand side of the presentation.
We had to think in-depth about how the pattern would appear on this dress. We decided to emphasize the sleeves and the hem of the dress, as you can see near the bottom of the dress and around the sleeve area. That’s where we decided to emphasize the pattern of the strawberries.
Basically, for this year, we got nine concepts presented as shown on the presentation. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. We decided to go with the one with the star, with the blue [gingham check] and with strawberries on it.
As the designer and the illustrator were coming up with various sketch-ups and concepts, we had the designer go ahead and create these dress mock-ups for reference to choose out from. We had one dress style for the traditional dress style design on the left-hand side and also camisole dress styles which are on the right-hand side that came up as key choices.
The reason we chose concept number one, on the left-hand side, was because our previous dress [that] was shown back in May at the previous con and right after we had that May presentation we were immediately contracted — or, decided to participate again — and we decided to go with a strawberry motif again for this year’s Naka-kon.
We decided to go with a very flexible design that is designed to have an adjustable waist area so that people of various sizes could enjoy using this dress and also have an open front for ventilation.
We also chose design concepts number eight and twelve. Those are more casual, everyday, comfortable designs. Designs that aren’t just for formal occasions; they can be worn more on a daily basis. We chose those for that concept as well.
If you guys aren’t aware, Japanese summers are incredibly humid and hot. We decided to go with these dresses for something that could be worn even in those hot Japanese summers.
For concept number eight, a lot of lolita fashion dresses tend to be very tight around the neck area, which is not very good for ventilation, especially in hot environments, so we deliberately decided to go with a more open concept for better ventilation in the hot summers. We decided to go with something called [unintelligible], which translated means a cool under texture, which is a special kind of fabric that is better for ventilation and is supposed to feel cooler to the touch in a hot environment. [Transcriber’s note: I believe Ohashi-san was describing a moisture-wicking lining.]
Taking into account the time at which it will arrive at the customer and making sure that not only is it a pretty design, but it is also something that can be worn comfortably no matter what kind of hot or humid environment you are in. We took special care when selecting fabric since Japan tends to have a very distinct four seasons, you know, very hot summers and cold winters. We decided to be very thoughtful in terms of "What season will this arrive with the customer?", "When will the customer be wearing this?", making sure to choose the appropriate fabric for the season.
Emily Temple Cute — this particular style — isn’t necessarily lolita fashion, it’s more of the traditional cute dress fashion is what its positioning is in terms of styles. However, we went with this design so that it could be worn as a lolita style dress. Also, the accessories, the [headband] as well, were designed so that it would match that aesthetic.
The colors that we adopted for this year’s dress design are the top four [on the slideshow presentation]. Not even the Japanese customers have ever seen this slide before. This is the first time in our history that we have shown the concepts and patterns, the colors, that we did not go with on the bottom half of the slide, actually.
Now, the reason we chose these four colors. First of all, the first one, obviously, when you think of strawberries you think of the color red. Red was a no-brainer in terms of the first one that we chose. And, thinking of red, another cute color is absolutely is pink. We definitely thought that red and pink will be mandatory when designing this dress. Those are the first two.
In terms of the colors that we didn’t choose, the reason for that, if you look at the left-hand side, the dark crimson red and navy blue on the bottom-left. In terms of procurement date, the time at which these dresses would arrive for our customers in Japan, would have been around April. Basically, spring is the color of rejuvenation and brightness. We decided that the dark crimson and the dark navy color on the bottom-left didn’t match the season, which is why we decided to exclude those colors.
For the Emily Temple Cute [brand], we do not have an official or dedicated store. However, in Tokyo and Osaka we have branch stores where the designs are displayed and for sale. We chose the colors on the top because these are the ones that will stick out the most in the most aesthetically pleasing [way] when you see them lined up at the store with all the other dresses. We chose the colors to make sure that they’re complimentary with the color of the strawberry and make sure they don’t contrast or conflict a bit too much, especially in terms of looking at the pattern and compared to the dresses that would be displayed nearby or around it.
Next is pattern making. The professional pattern maker makes a mock-up or drawing diagram of the dress, how it’s kind-of laid out. We do something called a toiling process, where we don’t use the actual fabric that’s going to be used in the final dress but we use a temporary fabric to make a mock-up of the dress.
We create a mock-up of the actual dress, have them bring it back. Then we consult with the designer to make sure that this is what we’re looking for, make sure that the concept does look good when it’s in a 3D form. Once this check is done, making sure that everything looks good, we start using the actual fabric that will be used and then create the actual thing.
So, the camisole dress — talking about that on this occasion — we have a model come over and actually do the fitting process, make sure everything looks good on an actual person. Checking the mobility, making sure that the person wearing the dress can be fully mobile in all the joints. And checking the final design overall, seeing that it looks good.
One point that we wanted to correct when we entered this stage of the production…if you look at the very bottom photo there, the print-out of the strawberry ended up being cut in half at the seam. We corrected the pattern because having the strawberry cut in half wasn’t aesthetically optimal. We went ahead and redesigned it so that the pattern would not be interrupted.
If you look at the top-right photo, the shoulder frills there, the initial concept wasn’t aesthetically pleasing to be blunt. We went through some different ideas with the designer, the patterner, and I to come up with a slightly better design to make it more aesthetically pleasing.
After all of those design phases are done, we’ve created the concept, we’ve corrected the concept to look like we want it to look like, we enter the manufacturing preparation phase. We begin the manufacturing by first consulting with the factory that will be producing the dress.
Abe-san: For the manufacturing and sewing section, I will go ahead and proceed with the presentation from here on out. Emily Temple Cute, when designing this clothing style, not only is all the designing process in-house, the factory is also in-house within the company. From the design process at the very beginning all the way to delivering the product to the final customer, all of that is done under one company. We don’t outsource anything. Basically, the manufacturing process is as shown in the presentation. The design is received from the design team and the people on the factory floor go ahead and start the production process as shown.
At the very end, we do the inspection and touch-up process for the dress that’s manufactured. We do multiple thorough inspection checks to make sure that the dress is up to our standards. However, this clothing is all handmade so, obviously, it’s human hands sewing and doing all this work. Inevitably, approximately one out of one hundred clothes that we manufacture at the factory end up not being up to our personal quality standards. That’s why we do such thorough inspections, not only on the factory floor but at the store itself when the product does finally arrive, to make sure every single piece of clothing that does enter the customers’ hands is up to our standards.
I recorded a video of actually what it looks like on the factory floor. I’d like to go ahead and present that to everyone here.
Suzanne: We were having some issues with our audio earlier, so hopefully you guys can hear this okay.
Abe-san: We’ll go ahead and show the video while I explain. First, we print the design onto the fabric itself as shown. This is a collaboration item with RoseMarie seoir. This is an Evangelion-themed [pattern] that you’re seeing right here. Ok, so, initially the pattern is printed onto paper and then it’s transferred onto the fabric. Said fabric is rolled as shown. This machine unifies them into a certain length.
We use computer-assisted design in the next process. We start the cutting process after correcting the design to the factory’s specifications. This product is a CAM [?] brand, themed brand, I believe. An automatic cutter cuts all these individual parts.
This is the sewing process. The fabric that has been cut into the individual parts of the dress are all stitched as shown using human hands and this machine here. What you just saw there was an Emily Temple Cute fabric being sewn. Finally, an iron is used to get rid of any wrinkles on every single piece of dress.
English Translator: And the text says, before shipping out there’s a final thorough inspection done on every single piece of dress.
Abe-san: Finally, they are packed into the appropriate packing and shipped out to the stores.
Alright, next slide please.
Next we’ll talk about the dispatch, or shipping-out, and marketing portion of things. The packaging process involves folding up all of those completed dresses to prepare for shipping and to attach the appropriate product tag. And from there it ships out to the appropriate store or online storage. That’s the general process of how one of our dresses is delivered to the final destination. Sometimes there are additional processes, like extra stitching or decorations attached, accessories, etc.
Next slide.
We’re going to go ahead and present another video. This is an introduction video showing the Melody BasKet brand.
[Transcriber's note: A combined version of the 'Brand Story' and 'lettre de @m' videos from the Melody BasKet youtube channel was played. I have embedded the videos below for you convenience.]
Emily Temple Cute also has a separate brand called Melody BasKet, as you saw in that introduction video just now. The concept behind Melody BasKet is that it came out of a children’s artbook or storybook. The person who wrote the story for us was Novala-sensei who also wrote Shimotsuma Monogatari (Kamikaze Girls) as well.
Some of our clothes are not made necessarily in Japan. We would like to have full transparency into the locations where we manufacture our dresses. One of our factories is in Akita prefecture in Japan. Now, tragically, in the past 30 years the sewing and textile industry has declined 80% in Japan. The reason we chose this factory in Akita to manufacture the Emily Temple Cute brand is to preserve, to the best of our ability, the manufacturing of dresses like these in Japan.
So, the video that we showed previously only showed a handful of the steps involved in producing a single dress. There’s a lot more involved. Generally speaking, for the average dress there’s approximately 3,000 steps involved until the final product is created. However, for the Emily Temple Cute brand we go over 10,000 different steps until the final dress is complete.
One of the things we’re passionate about for the Emily Temple Cute brand is fostering the next generation of craftspeople who will be creating these dresses. We believe that it will ultimately be to the best benefit of the customer as well.
That is all.
[Applause]
Suzanne: Wow. That was really informative. We all have kind-of a general understanding of the difference between brand and off-brand or indie brands. Everyone who joins this fashions get it said over and over again how much work and detail goes into Japanese brand pieces that causes both the price and the quality to be elevated above what we might expect for regular clothing — certainly above fast fashion as well — and I think this really helps illustrate the amount of work that goes in to that and all of the processes and designs. I thought it was really interesting to see the colorways that they mock-up and consider. I think, overall, they made the best decision.
What I’m curious about — and I’ll field this to our guests here — is maybe, could you kinda drop like a little…just a theme or a motif of something that’s in the pipeline?
Ohashi-san: This is our second time ever participating in Naka-kon, since last year, and we have realized how much the American audience loves our designs. To give you a hint, we’ve really felt how much our American audience loves our products. We’re with something a little more pop-esque, a little more America-themed for our next idea.
Suzanne: Ooooo….Americana, maybe? I, for one, am always yearning for a pizza dress but I think they have already moved beyond Italian food.
Ohashi-san: I’ll take that into consideration.
Suzanne: Just pulling what few strings I can.
What really stuck out to me is, even a lot of other Japanese brands — like I know Angelic Pretty and, I think, Baby to a certain extent, have moved their production over to China. And a lot of them are really courting the Chinese market which has just exploded. I’m curious, is that also a market that you’re experiencing growth in and wanting to market towards? Or, like you mentioned before, with the Western perspective, are you just gearing more towards Europe and the West?
Ohashi-san: Yes, we are definitely aiming to expand into the Chinese market. But we are definitely also emphasizing creating a product that the American customer base would love, absolutely. And we are also targeting trying to get our foot into the European market as well. We’re still in the middle of analyzing the market and trying to reach our goal of getting our products internationally, making it available for our international audience.
One of our recent developments is that, for the American market, we’ve announced the plus size version of our dresses. And we are absolutely happy that so many people have been so positively receptive of that and very positive in terms of reaction. We would absolutely love to continue to improve our products with everyone’s — we are open to everyone’s feedback, suggestions, advice, comments, questions, etc. so that we can make our products and designs even better for everyone.
Suzanne: Yes! And a great way to do that is – Lolita Collective, for last year’s Naka-kon, put together a survey collecting general information — size, style, fit preferences — from the Western and plus size community. We’ve created a very similar survey to continue collecting and refining that information. We send that directly over to our friends at Emily Temple Cute. The first batch was really helpful to them. So, with Ohashi-san’s mention of feedback and information, if you have any of that to contribute, Lolita Collective has posted that survey, I believe, to all our social media. It should be the link in our bio on Instagram and other places. So, if you haven’t filled out that survey, go ahead and do so because getting just as much data as possible so they can get the idea of: "Ok, what is the average size of our market?", "Who should we get this to fit?", "What is working?”, “What isn’t working?" is super helpful to us.
And, hopefully, that first survey we sent for that first year was a help for them and we really want this second one to help more.
Ohashi-san: Yes. Please, we would greatly appreciate it.
Suzanne: After the fashion show, there will be a more general designer Q&A. But because we have wrapped up their main talking points for the most part, we could probably take one or two questions from the audience as long as it’s probably a little bit tighter to the topic of what we discussed. More general questions for our guests can go to that Q&A panel. Which, we will be collecting those ahead of time! If you want to drop off any kind of question, go to the Emily Temple Cute booth in the vendor hall and submit that ahead of time for that Q&A. For now, I suppose we’ll just take one or two questions right here. You can come up and talk into the mic or, y’know, just raise your hand and yell at me.
We have someone, yeah.
Audience Member 1: I’ll come up to the microphone.
Suzanne: Sure, sure!
Audience Member 1: You mentioned that you didn’t want the strawberries cut off in the design at the seam. Do you have to change the scale of the design for your straight sizes versus your plus sizes?
Suzanne: Excellent question. I wonder that myself.
Ohashi-san: It is true because you’re using different fabrics sizes there – or types there – that the overall pattern of the dress might end up being slightly different. But we do take into consideration all of those fine details when producing our dresses. Our Japanese customers, as well, are especially acute about attention to detail and they do pay very close attention to that. For example, we are extra careful if it’s an animal-style pattern to make sure that the animal isn’t, due to the stitching, looking decapitated or anything like that. We do our absolute best to make sure that they look as pretty as possible and make sure that the animals aren’t in an unfortunate dismembered state due to the seams.
Suzanne: We definitely appreciate that attention to detail! My favorite little detail that I’ve noticed on this little laundry print is the tiny, tiny little raccoon that’s on the laundry bottle. I’m not entirely — it’s a little small, so I’m not entirely sure — I think it’s more of a raccoon dog, like, a Japanese one rather than an American one. But either way, both of them, like, wash their food and wash their hands – so they’re clean! That’s just my new favorite thing I wanted to gush about!
Does anyone have any questions? Yeah!
Audience Member 2: Hi! I wanted to say thank you, first of all, for your time. I was curious about the process between you and your illustrators. I was wondering what sort of mediums your artists tend to work in to design the final designs, whether it be digital illustration or more traditional work like watercolor?
Suzanne: That is a good question.
Ohashi-san: In terms of our textile designers, recently more and more – especially now – we use fully digital illustrators. However, for the small touch-ups, we go to the textile and printing level to make micro adjustments. For example, watercolor aesthetic or oil pastel, oil painting aesthetics, we actually do use actual watercolor and oil painting to do the final touch-ups in terms of those small details — making it look more non-digital. We do pay attention to the details like that for each and every pattern. What is the optimal way to get the final details and the final touch-ups in, what sort of medium we’ll use, we always take into consideration stuff like that.
Suzanne: Fascinating! Something that I was wondering when I was listening so intently to this presentation — this might be something Abe-san can answer — I’m wondering if there’s a financial incentive to stay all Japanese manufacturing? Either provided by the Japanese government or otherwise? Because I know that they have a lot of protective tariffs when it comes to other industries, and I’m wondering if there’s anything to help offset the additional cost of having it small-scale, having it local, from the Japanese government or otherwise?
Abe-san: We would love to have financial incentives like that from the government, but the reality is, no, it’s very difficult.
Suzanne: Well, I think that makes that commitment that much more meaningful. Because a lot of countries will have programs, protective tariffs, incentives…I think that represents a great commitment to values! What do you guys think?
[Applause]
Suzanne: Does anyone have any other questions about the design and manufacturing — do I see a hand? No? Oh! There’s a hand. There’s hands over there. You, in the glasses. You, in the — oh, wait, both of you are wearing glasses! Yeah, yeah — she raised her hand first! [laughs] In the black haori-looking thing.
Audience Member 3: In curating the brand’s image, are there certain pieces of art or themes that you stick to or do you consult what is currently on the shelves to then evolve your design?
Suzanne: Ok, for the rest of us who may have not heard that, that attendee’s question was “Are there motifs that Emily Temple Cute sticks to? Do they follow larger trends?”. Probably a more general query about when do they introduce a totally new motif versus following, maybe, what someone else is putting out? We’ll see what they say.
Ohashi-san: In terms of the popular series that we have in our line-up, obviously, we update it on an annual basis. However, we always love introducing new concepts and ideas into the market. We always try to come up with an idea of, like, “Wow! You’re gonna make that a dress? You’re gonna make that the theme?”. Something very unique or special, we always try to come up with something like that on a frequent basis.
I imagine, for example, the lady in the front row wearing that cereal themed dress is something that I imagine is very unique, for example, that we’re proud of. The future Emily Temple Cute concept that we hinted at is something that no one here has probably ever seen made into a dress pattern before. So please look forward to that in the future!
[Transcriber's note: I was the person wearing the cereal dress!]
Suzanne: And then, that other — in the green cosplay. You had a question? You can come up here or you can just try to project.
Audience Member 4: [Asks question in Japanese]
English Translator: Good Japanese!
Ohashi-san: I’m quite a fan of blue, myself.
Suzanne: Yes. Our attendee asked what Ohashi-san’s favorite color for a dress was. And I think that does track — I think she was wearing a lot of the blue the last time I saw her, last year, and this is in the same line [referring to the dress Ohashi-san is currently wearing].
Audience Member 4: I’m all for blue superiority.
Ohashi-san: [gives a thumbs-up]
Suzanne: But yes, very good Japanese. [pause] You can come up! Come up here, Susie.
Audience Member 5: So, yesterday, I bought one of the Emily Temple Cute dresses with the adjustable waist ribbons. I really like that because it’s very comfortable and I also think if my size changes a little bit, I can still wear the dress. Is that something you were thinking about when you were designing that feature?
Ohashi-san: Yes, so obviously, there are various body types around the world. We’ve designed our clothing to be beautiful no matter what type of body you have. We’ve designed and machined our clothing so that you can tighten your waist to make it look cute and you can also have it looser and still be able to look cute.
We’re currently in the process of making even more designs where various body styles can be appreciated and look beautiful. I think everyone can agree that wearing these dresses and all sorts of various different styles of fashion is fun. We plan to continue to make different styles of clothing that everyone can have fun and enjoy dressing in in the future.
[Applause]
Suzanne: Yes, that’s wonderful! I, for one, am delighted to have a pasta dress that I can eat pasta in. I can go to Olive Garden and get those unlimited breadsticks.
Oh, it looks like we have another question! Since it’s 12:29, that’ll probably be our last question. Any other questions, stop by the Emily Temple Cute booth and submit those and we’ll read them out for the Q&A later! But, go ahead, sir, and you can come up if you would like, as well.
Audience Member 6: How do you gauge interest in your dresses and decide on production quantities?
Suzanne: For those who might not have heard that gentleman, he asked how do they gauge how many dresses to make, production quantity, of a release?
Ohashi-san: Currently, the Emily Temple Cute brand, we go with a reservation/preorder type system. The reason for that is that we want to avoid situations where our dresses are sold out and someone who really wanted our dress wasn’t able to get one. We’ve designed it in this way to avoid that as much as possible.
So, in manufacturing terminology, it’s a pull-type where the amount we manufacture is directly based on customer demands and orders. So that, for example, let’s say one color — in a traditional manufacturing system, if one color is particularly popular, that one gets always sold out. We wanted to avoid that as much as possible, which is why we went with the order system instead.
That’s the upside of that manufacturing system. However, the downside is that, obviously, there is a time delay between the customer ordering one of our dresses and it arriving at their doorstep. There is that time delay, which is the downside.
For the Naka-kon of this year, we decided to order products in a way that everyone can just immediately buy it on the spot to take home. However, in Japan, we do have that reservation system/preorder system where we do get feedback that the time between ordering one of our dresses and it arriving is like — y’know, you have to wait and that can be a bit frustrating.
In the future, we would like to adopt a system where we can also produce more dresses ahead of time. In terms of the exact number we’re going to produce, I myself am still in the process of mulling over that and thinking “Ok, how many are we going to make?”.
Abe-san: One thing that I would like to add — as mentioned, we do primarily take on a format of an order-based system in terms of manufacturing. Similar to Toyota’s “just in time” production, we create the necessary amount of clothing at the necessary timing, just enough to meet our customer demand.
Before we really worked on the Emily Temple Cute project and began this, the standard style for this industry was to create a certain amount of these dresses and anything that was left unsold would be put on sale. That would be the traditional style for the apparel industry. But, personally, we weren’t satisfied with the idea that some people pay X price, the full price, for our products while other people end up getting it for 50% off. That just didn’t feel right for me, personally. That’s why we went with the ordering system, so that certain people don’t end up with a massive bargain and other people do not. To avoid that, that’s why we chose this system.
Suzanne: Well, it seems they’ve successfully avoided the “bloodbath” model of releases that some other brands adhere to. I think all of the fans of Emily Temple Cute think that that system is worth the wait. What do you guys think?
[Applause]
Suzanne: And that wraps up this panel. Thank you so much Abe-san and Ohashi-san for joining us and giving us this unique look to see how the pasta is made. I have learned a lot and I hope you all have too!
As I’ve said before, if you have any sort of leftover questions for our designers, and I think Misako as well, there will be a Q&A after the fashion show today. So swing by the Emily Temple Cute booth to see the final result of this 10,000 step production process and also drop off those Q&A questions for us there. I look forward to seeing you at the booth and thank you all so much for attending and for your very thoughtful questions.
