CHAPTER 4
A New Takihyo Headquarters for a New Age
At only 26 years old, I shouldered a tremendous weight. Initially, I had doubted myself because I was young and inexperienced. However, as a result of hard work (and some luck), I became successful in a relatively short period of time. I owe much of this success to those who believed in me: my family, my friend at Tokai Bank, and the executives at Takihyo who forced me to take my father’s place. The pressure helped push me in the right direction as well. I learned a lot by taking on such profound responsibilities.
The Stacy Ames brand helped me gain legitimacy at Takihyo. Regardless of how radical a departure this was from Takihyo’s history, the change to 100 percent Western clothing brought many benefits to the company, and the line’s success once again proved to me the importance of a positive outlook coupled with dedication.
However, the Western-style clothing brands couldn’t be the only area in which we grew. At this point, Takihyo had much more money in pocket, and a new era had begun in Japan. These changes led me to believe that the company should expand beyond the clothing divisions, and by the mid-1960s I began to consider new business areas we could enter. So many facets of Japanese life were beginning to meld with Western practices—from the ubiquity of clothing and food to the theories underlying every aspect of the Japanese social structure. Limiting Takihyo to just clothing seemed like a mistake to me. To that end, ...
