NOTE FROM THE EDITORS
Introducing 5 Years of Tenue de Nîmes WRITTEN BY MENNO VAN MEURS PHOTOGRAPHY BY BENJAMIN VAN WITSEN
It wasn't until I started looking back at pictures we took that I realized how much has happened in the past five years. When we started Tenue de Nîmes in 2008 we could not possibly have imagined where our lovely journey would take us in the following years. Our first Journal de Nîmes presented our Tenue de Nîmes philosophy to the world. And now this tenth issue celebrates our five year anniversary. I have to admit that we have had our doubts whether there would be another Journal de Nîmes after the international success of the last issues. The journal started to look like an official magazine and people from around the world asked us what it would cost them to sell the Journals in their stores. Never mind the fact that our Journal de Nimes was meant to be for free. We started the magazine on the basic assumption that it would be a natural extension of the things we like best about being in the store: storytelling. It gives us great joy to share our passion for the good things in life with a like-minded network of people. The magazine allow us to speak to a larger audience though. On top of that it provides more in-depth information, interviews and background stories on the fascinating brands, concepts and people that we are so fortunate to have come across on a daily basis. It took us a year to decide we need another Journal de Nîmes in our lives. We had a lot of people ask us why we decided to put our magazine on hold. We usually responded by saying we did not want to become a magazine at all, that things got out of hand, though all in a very good way. Well, sometimes you need to miss something before you can acknowledge how much you really love it. As the Tenue de Nimes five year anniversary drew closer we thought a 'Best of Journal de Nimes' issue would honor both our tenth release as well as our fifth birthday. But no sooner had we gotten used to the idea of realizing another self-created monster that we realised there was so much 'new' stuff
JOURNAL DE NÎMES / Nº 9 THE 5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY ISSUE
we had to tell you about that we just decided to go for it. And just for the record, we decided to never step away from it ever again. This tenth edition introduces you to a variety of people and stories that we came across over the last five years. This journal covers a key-note on the blue world of Mister Freedom's Christophe Loiron. On top of that we introduce you to some of the latest additions to our Tenue de Nîmes brand portfolio such as Hancock, Les Prairies de Paris and Mr. Yuki Matsuda, founding father of Yuketen, who was kind enough to introduce us to his new 'casual up' baby Monitaly. And, also in this issue, a new episode of our 'Essentials' in which we ask Nana Murbandono, marketing Manager at Levi's XX, about his favorites. This five year Anniversary issue would not be 'Tenue de Nîmes' if it did not include a report on some of our latest adventures abroad. We therefore decided to give you a unique insight into the indigo paradise of mr. Bryan Whitehead, the Canadian indigo professor who we met up with at his silk farm, two hours outside Tokyo, in the mountains of Fujino this April. Lastly, and so that Rene Joachim and I never forget all those amazing moments we spent together, we published an image timeline covering some of the many highlights of this five year journey. Please note that this is a slightly censored compilation as some of the images will not be revealed until we need some serious blackmail material. At this moment I can only say thank you for all the great moments we have spent with you guys so far and let's hope many more may follow in the next five years.
5