Age creeps up on me, days just keep escaping unnoticed and chapters fly by, and before I have a chance to realise, decades go past and the things I thought were a temporary fix become fundamental aspects of my life. Approaching life with intention is an ideal I always strive for - slowing down and making a measured decision to use this thing or learn that skill - but life doesn’t always allow it. I often feel that who I am is a result of every small decision I make, best intentions aside.
Investing in the things that make up my life has proven to be a bedrock of who I am - deciding to make a garment a tool of my life and treating it accordingly. I love to polish my shoes after they’ve had a few nicks and scuffs, darning knitwear or repairing the seams on a garment, and in doing so it has given me an appreciation for classicism over novelty, substance over hype.
Some of the things I own, and I hope all of the things we make as a brand, help me to discern what makes something an investment and not a frivolous purchase, and these are the things that have become valued tools throughout this very rapid journey through life. When I stop and realise that this or that piece has been with me for decades now, not months or years, I’m happy to have them there.
We move into a significant new chapter in 2023 - our first store in Tokyo turns 7, and our newest home on Chiltern Street in London has opened. Bouncing between the two, it’s heartening to see our philosophy manifest in our physical space. Our Tokyo store has collected the physical and cultural patina of a functional home to our brand and the people that make us who we are. The painted floorboards worn down to the timber, the postcards from friends around the world, a living history of Bryceland’s.
London starts that journey, in a space better than any I could’ve imagined, with a team that understands who we are and will carry it further than I or Kenji ever could alone.
With Ben Chamberlain, our London store manager, there is a new member of the family that sees the beauty in utility and functional design. Ben has a keen eye and knowledge of vintage clothing, and can polish who we are to a high shine for a new audience in London.
The people, like the things that we let into our lives, become so much the fabric of who we are. Adopting a new colleague shapes us as much as it does them, an idea becomes a business, a team becomes a family. With seven years behind us, we look forward to many more ahead.
