Dashing in denim
Jeans from Japan made using traditional, labour-intensive methods take a starring role at a small Bangkok boutique
AFTER 10 SUCCESSFUL years of keeping Bangkok’s office workers and cyclists in brand name jeans and recycled casual designs from the US, Pornsuk “Lee” Sri-Urai has now turned his eye for fashion by bringing leading Japanese jeans labels Evisu and Yamane to the city while retaining his stocks of trendy vintage gear.
Pornsuk, a former franchisee of popular Hong Kong multi-brand boutique Take 5, opened Leepublic last year and in addition to becoming the exclusive distributor for these two brands will be bringing another two Japanese labels to Bangkok very soon.
“I saw Bangkok’s fashion potential after working in a second-hand American clothes shop for a few years. I opened my first shop at MBK shopping mall as a franchise of the Hong Kong-based boutique to offer Japanese jeans brands famous for their denim dying techniques and good cut,” Pornsuk says.
“In 2009, I moved to a bigger space in Lido Multiplex and last year renamed my boutique Leepublic, which is a play on my nickname and the word ‘commonwealth’.”
Located on the second floor of Lido Multiplex in Siam Square, the store is furnished with curvy wood furniture and collectible toys, which evoke a strong feeling of the good old days. The shelves are stacked with Evisu jeans adorned with a red tap and the hand-painted seagull logo on the back pocket and Yamane denims decorated with mountain-inspired embroidery.
“Evisu produces two lines, one for the Japanese market and the other for the European market. I’ve chosen to stock only the Japanese collection because I think it has more appeal to Thais. The brand has always been popular with cyclists and motorbike enthusiasts and customers particularly like the hand-painted logo as well as the chance to customise their own designs,” he says.
Leepublic also stocks hand-made blue jeans by Momotaro for which a unique dyeing technique is used to ensure the colour doesn’t fade, a Warehouse series made using tailoring techniques common to the 1950s and the heavier Samurai edition with its signature faded look.
Well-cut printed shirts and tees by Pherrow’s and shirts, jeans and accessories by Sugar Cane are also available along with a selection of rare second-hand Levi’s jeans, Converse Jack Purcell dead-stock sneakers, leather jackets, leather boots, screened T-shirts and Hawaii-style shirts made from cotton, pineapple fibre textile and rayon.
MAKING THE CUT
>> Leepublic is on the second floor of Lido Multiplex, Siam Square Soi 3. It’s open daily from noon to 9pm. Call (02) 654 6229 or |visit “Leepublic Store” page on Facebook.
