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ACCIDENTAL DESIGNER Fog Linen’s founder, Yumiko Sekine, brings more of her beautifully simple homeware to Father Rabbit’s new Auckland store. INTERVIEW / Jeremy Hansen PHOTOGRAPHY / David Straight
HOME You had a roundabout approach to starting your company. Tell me about that. YUMIKO SEKINE When I graduated, I worked for a furniture company in Tokyo, visiting their factories in the Philippines and also European furniture fairs. I learned a lot from my experience there, but after two years I quit my job and worked for a foreign bookstore, where I started selling used books from New York – mostly vintage illustrated children’s books for cooking, with graphics that were interesting to graphic designers. I also sold wire baskets made in Mexico, and then started looking for linen. I visited Lithuania without realising it was a place to grow flax and make linen for export. I tried to call places that seemed to make linen products but most of them didn’t speak English and just hung up. Only one or two could contact me, and one of them is the one I’m now working with. Why did you want to work with linen? My parents liked to use linen at home so it felt natural to me to have linen products in my collection. French linen was too expensive and the size was bigger than we need for everyday use in small Japanese houses. Originally I didn’t plan to create my own designs but the Lithuanian supplier only sent me some small samples of fabric, so I made some sketches and sent them back and asked him to produce kitchen towels. I wasn’t sure if I could sell them or what the quality could be, but they sold immediately. I opened my store in 1999, the next year. You now export to 40 countries. It’s not bad for an accidental designer. I’ve never made any plans for my business, and I still don’t think I’m a designer. I intend to make my products without design. They have patterns but they just need to be simple and functional – they don’t need additional design. I just make things I want to use at home.
HOME NEW ZEALAND / 34
Below Items on display at Father Rabbit's new store in the Auckland suburb of Herne Bay.
Below right Yumiko Sekine worked for a furniture company, then sold second-hand books before creating linen homeware.
Bottom Handkerchiefs, tea-towels and bags are some of the Fog Linen pieces sold at Father Rabbit.
Father Rabbit 2 32 Jervois Road Herne Bay, Auckland 09 360 2573 fatherrabbit.com