Umami Lookbook

UMAMI emerged as a concept in 2019 as our founder was using design as a creative outlet. A year later the Covid-19 pandemic began. While devastating and unprecedented the pandemic provided an opportunity for reflection on our society and how we operate within it. In such polarizing times it was comforting to conceptualize unity.

This brought about the Heavy With Hoping line. While we all have differences, whether in lifestyle, belief systems, or nationality, one thing we all share deep down is hope for a better tomorrow.

The Mono No Aware collection is similarly rooted in reflection. The pandemic, while many things, has not been brief, and in those dog days of summer the concept of time began to slowly melt away. Time seemed to eek by slowly each and every day, yet on the weekend you could have sworn it was just Tuesday. This phenomenon emanated emotion and sparked feeling, yet there was no term in english to properly capture it.

Mono No Aware means, “the melancholic appreciation of the transiency of existence� in Japanese, and it is the perfect term to summarize this discrepancy in feeling time.