CultureMizuki KhouryOctober 24, 2023silk screen, tokyo youth, creation printing service

Creation Printing Service - The Tokyo Silk-Screen Printing Brand You Need to Know

CultureMizuki KhouryOctober 24, 2023silk screen, tokyo youth, creation printing service

Fashion snaps from the streets of Tokyo have the whole world enamored.

Looking at all these people in their most outlandish outfits and their eclectic individuality is satisfactory in the most romantic way. There are articles and forums for days about Harajuku fashion and its numerous branches, big names like Issey Miyake and Rei Kawakubo, and all-over glamour.

But this is just skimming the surface of Tokyo’s vast apparel universe. Sure, the hot topics and trends are cool, but there’s much more depth on the other side of fashion creativity, especially in the youth sector, where skaters collide with underground musicians, and propel innovations from scratch that industry adult gobble on.

These behind-the-scenes brands loved by the community and the cool cats are not so visible in the eye of mainstream culture or algorithms, but they’re arguably the brands with the most direct impact. Creation Printing Service [@creationprintingservice] is one of those.

A family business located right below the wings of Skytree in Sumida, Creation Printing Service is a shop specializing in silk-screen printing. Unlike your regular silk-screen printing shop, Creation Printing Service [often shortened to just Creation] is the standard for quality.

It is to say that it’s a small business, but it’s kept niche to avoid excess and provide exclusivity: the brand really is the incarnation of quality over quantity.

Their only social media presence is Instagram, and even their account is kept private, but their loyal clients are all local legends, skateboard instigators, Tokyo’s biggest creative collectives, and more. Usually representing the backstage of the current Tokyo style, Creation Printing Service is increasingly showing up at the forefront. It’s crucial to understand that it’s increasingly being recognized by magazines such as Ollie and also expanding in the youth scene as a favorite brand.

sabukaru had the chance the sit down with Raku Endo [@raku_endo], who is shaping this new chapter of Creation Printing Service.

Laid-back and honest, Endo is widely known in the backstreets of Harajuku to Ueno for his work ethic and vision, and Creation Printing Service could not be better represented. Along with his newest assistant Deev [@deevtyo], Endo talks about Tokyo’s blooming skateboard scene, custom designs, the city’s fashion influence, and more.

Thanks for taking the time to speak with us. For those who don’t know you, can you introduce yourself to the sabukaru network?

I am Raku Endo and I work at Creation Printing Service. I skateboarded from when I was 15 years old until I was 21 years old.

I was following sabukaru online because I thought it was an interesting web magazine, and I wondered if it was okay for a newbie like me to be up there with all these people who had already made history.

When did you first get into Creation Printing Service and what got you into it?

My father has been doing Creation Printing Service for 30 years. My father is the type of person who doesn’t want to be in the media, he wants to be completely backstage.

I joined him when I turned 20. I always liked clothes, so I think I already had a good sense of color: I knew which went together, and I think that's one of my strengths. My father did not want to be in the media, so we made clothes under the same name, and I started managing the social media side as well.

I made an Instagram account because I wanted to show the process of making clothes for the people that bought our items. Skaters around me wore our items, and so did my rapper and biker friends. It’s thanks to them that I am now known.

What is Creation Printing Service to you?

It's work, but I think it's also a place where I can have fun talking to people and connecting with them while making clothes. I come here whenever I feel like it, sometimes even just for a quick smoke. It's just that kind of place.

What is the philosophy of Creation Printing Service?

Quality is the most important. Some of the pieces I make are pretty bizarre, ones that you would not find at a store. But the style depends on the customer I am making it for.

I also try to pitch in my own ideas when I can. If a customer has an image of what they want I’ll sometimes offer slight changes that I think will make it look better. Of course, everyone is different, so even if I think something looks good, another person may not. I don't force my ideas onto them but I try to add my own input as well.

For you, what kind of meaning does fashion hold?

It’s a communication tool between people and it is something that can portray coolness. I also think it is something that is necessary when talking with friends, something like “This came out recently”, “What do you think about this?”, “I wanna try making something like this”, etc. Fashion is the seed of these types of conversations. Creation Printing Service is more than making apparel, it's about making culture.

I wanted to be able to show people all the designs I can make and I thought the best way to show them would be by making clothes. The clothes I made then would be sold at skate shops and I was able to make money through that. To be honest, I think my career has been going too well. I only started two years ago but I've been able to be on Ollie Magazine and other magazines. Many people have been wearing my clothes. I’ve had a lot of people come to my pop-ups and everything I sell ends up being sold out. I think I have a lot of luck and I want to keep using my luck to make the best of it.

You have somewhat of an influence on Tokyo’s underground skate scene. How do you feel about this?

I don't feel like I am [laughs], am I influencing them? I guess it's the friends I made while I used to skate. I am who I am because of skateboarding. I was able to skate earlier than most in the community, so I guess that's why there are people who say I made a big influence. The guys that know me through skateboarding buy and wear the clothes I make.

Although I am really happy that some people say I am a big influence, I don’t think I've done enough to earn that role yet. Just a bit more and I'll be there. I have luck in this way too. Thanks to my friends, I have people that say I have a big influence on the skate scene. Friends are so important for everything, even in selling clothes. If I don't have friends that support me, others won't support me either.

Do you consider yourself an artist?

Not at all. I really don't like titles like that. I want to work under no stress, and if I get put under a title like “artist”, it limits what I do and forces me into a category.

Even recently, I hesitate to call myself a skater because I feel like I would be forced to keep skating. I originally started skating just for fun, but adding a title like that takes the fun out of it. That's why I don't watch skate videos; I am sorry but I have no interest in them. I would skate because I liked skating and that’s the only reason why I did it.

When did you start skateboarding and why?

When I was in my third year of middle school. A friend brought his skateboard and invited me to skate with him. At first, I was using the penny board and I was spending so much money on these skateboards to get the best one. We would take money from our parents and use that on the penny boards.

Then, I switched to regular skateboards and we would all just go skate at parks, every day until the morning. We would go to Ueno park a lot and film videos there. I started to get good at it and moved to street skateboarding and other people would come to film me.

Supreme saw a video of me skating when I was 18 but you can’t join Supreme when you are 18, and, when I quit high school and had no idea what to do, Supreme hit me up.

When did Deev, your current assistant, start coming in?

Deev: Whenever there was an event, I would come by and hang out. I’d go to buy long sleeves.

Raku: Yeah, he’d come to buy long sleeves. I don’t really sell my clothes to people I don’t know very well. It’s not that I don’t want them to wear my clothes, but it all starts with the people who surround you, from friends.

I sold my clothes to him through DMs. I’d ask him to come to the office or when I had a workshop or event he would come and watch. He told me he wanted to try making his own prints too, and so recently he comes to work at around 9 am.

Deev: Yeah, from 9 am, with coffee. I’ve become close with the worker at 7/11 from buying coffee every morning [laughs]. Ever since I started hanging around the city, which has only been about a year, Creation Printing Service was already here. Prints designed by Raku caught my eye and when I talked to people that wore his clothes, they explained that Creation Printing Service has been here for a long time.

I was really taken aback by the logo of the brand that never changed and the quality of the prints. I could really feel that the items being made here weren't sold anywhere else and I’m really grateful for being able to come in and out of the store like this.

Why don’t you want to sell your prints to people you don’t know?

There are a lot of lame people. For example, people will wear Creation Printing Service to become close to someone else. Some have the mindset that if they wear my prints, they are connected to me in a way and use that to make more connections. Just like clout chasers, I dislike them.

I'm only surrounded by people who think they are the best at what they do, like my close friends. People that continue to do what they love and people that know what they are doing is cool. I don’t want to be taken advantage of and so I typically don’t sell my items to random people.

If they really wanted to buy something from me, they would shoot me a DM. I don't think I have to go out of my way and upload my stuff on a website and sell them. However, when I do get too many DMs, I sell them at PROV, a skate shop in Harajuku.

To design, do you first take the sampling and then build off of that?

For my designs I don’t consult anyone for help, I create them on my own.

In the future, what direction do you want the company Creation Printing Service to go in?

I want Creation Printing Service to constantly keep making cool prints. For example, conducting a workshop at Supreme is impossible because they are not able to place a t-shirt silk screen printing machine inside. But I'm pretty sure they can do prints on the clothes they sell and so currently, that is what I want to be able to do in the future.

I’ve worked at Supreme before and loved the brand since middle school. I still have a good connection with them so they will send me clothes occasionally. I have good friends and senpais [seniors] still working there that have seen my work and told me that I have been working hard, so it would be nice to be able to create prints for them in the future.

I think everyone will be envious if I am able to get that opportunity. I want to keep doing things that make others jealous [laughs].

Do you have any other brands you would like to work with?

I want to work with Always, a brand that my senpai runs that is very stylish. He releases shoe laces and clothes. What stands out is his selection of colors like orange or fluorescent yellow. He probably doesn’t know I have thought about working with his brand.

I met him through Black Eye Patch. If you look him up, you'll probably be able to find his account. He has about 20,000 followers even though his account is set to private. I copied him and decided to make my account private as well. His mindset is, “If you don’t want to see, then it doesn’t matter if you do or don’t.” It’s as simple as unfollowing someone if you don’t want to see their content. We need more people that think this way.

Having a high follow count has its own merits but you can buy followers now. I only need followers that are actually interested in my content so I won’t buy followers. I only want the people that want to wear my prints, if they don’t care, I don’t want them wearing them. So, rather than expanding Creation as a brand, I want it to reach the right people.

There are so many brands that would release clothes that I thought were cool back then but are not anymore. This is because people focus too much on the numbers. But I think numbers don’t matter and shouldn't exist. I have a little over 1600 followers right now for Creation, and if you think 1 person is 100 dollars, then its 170 000 dollars in total [laughs]. That's how I think.

Where do you get inspiration for graphics?

I come up with everything in my head by thinking about what is cool or what shades of color will look nice. I’m constantly thinking of new ideas throughout the day, whenever I have free time.

Do you have any artists you like or any brands that have graphics you like?

No. I don’t think I've ever received any inspiration from other brands. I have never found a brand I liked and wanted to use as a sample. It goes back to what we were saying earlier, brands don't have items that we will pay money to wear. There is no one I look up to and think, “I want to be like this person.”

We all, including Deev and the friends around me, do what we love, make money, ride cars we like, and buy nice homes. I continue to work so I am able to do the things I love. That’s why there is no person that I want to become. I think that as long as we are having fun, then it's fine.

For example, at the ComplexCon in LA in 2022, I made all the prints on my own for Youth Quake. The guys I look up to showed me support, and just having my prints on clothes displayed in LA felt amazing. I think that’s another evaluation criterion, how customers see your work. When they get asked, “Where did you print that?”, I want people to say “Creation Printing Service”. Although I am someone behind the scenes, I also want to be front and center at times too. That’s because I enjoy getting praised, I think everyone does.

Do you want to do more things abroad like how you did with ComplexCon?

Yes, if I can [laughs]. I want to do workshops abroad and take my printing machine with me. I want to be able to do workshops in France or Paris. The place doesn't really matter, to be honest.

The reason why I want to go overseas is that the whole printing process originated in America. This job was born in America. Japanese people are very meticulous and they pay attention to detail. If you look back at art made in Japan, it's amazing and I want to show people abroad how beautiful Japanese prints are. It also depends on what the people seek, I'm sure there are some people who aren't looking for clean prints, but the majority of customers want clean prints.

What do you think about street culture or skate culture abroad?

I am always digging and looking for new music. I can't work without music playing in the back. I listen to hip-hop and RnB the most.

In which direction do you think the Tokyo skate scene will move in the future?

Raku: There are a lot of skaters that I trust. I’m pretty much retired from the skating scene, so people like Arashi, Ryouki, Lil K, and all the friends that I've been skating with for a while will make it cool for the future. I will get the people in the skating scene to wear the clothes I make and also help make the scene cool. A cool scene means a scene that is admired and envied by people in different countries, as well as different scenes in Japan.

Deev: I don’t skate but I love watching people skate. I’m not too knowledgeable about skating, but sometimes when we drink or something, I watch Raku skate and I'm blown away. He's super fast and he rides very smoothly, so it's nice to watch.

Raku: I think what's most important is to stay confident and see yourself as cool. If there are people that complain about what you’re doing, just fight back. To prevent people from complaining or calling the skate scene lame, I think it's important to keep the scene level-headed.

In a positive way, how do you have so much confidence?

It's because the friends around me support me and that boosts my confidence. The community around me has a strong influence on it. People like my dad who think they are the best can build confidence on their own, but I'm not like that, I definitely gain it through the people around me.

There are definitely times when I lose my confidence and get confused about what I'm doing. When I go to clubs, I'll have times when people come up to me and tell me they follow my Instagram account but that makes me think, “What am I doing, What kind of person am I?”

Who gives you inspiration?

Virgil Abloh and Tyler the Creator were wearing gloves that looked like they were made for construction work at shows. I had made gloves just like that two months prior to them wearing them. In those aspects, there are people that have similar tastes when it comes to clothes. In terms of really famous people, I think the closest would be Virgil. I'm not receiving much inspiration but I think he has good taste. I'm always faster at coming up with ideas though: I don't understand why they get the most attention.

Do you want to get to the same level as Virgil?

No, not really. I don’t think I can reach his level. It really depends on the strength of the people surrounding me. The adults that are seen as cool right now need to go out of their way and help train the youth, not for their own benefit but to help the youth be able to reach higher levels in the future. If the adults don't help hook up the younger generation, the street culture will fade away. You need help from others to get to the top.

Do you not want Creation to become famous?

It's not that I don't want it to become famous, I do want people to know that we have a factory like this in Tokyo. I really don't mind if people come to visit either. If someone comes to the store I won’t get annoyed. If some people find me through sabukaru and come to know about Creation Printing Service, it would be nice for companies to come to the shop and see what I’ve been doing.

So, I do want to become famous. Whatever it is that I want to do, I think it's easier to continue if I'm famous. Being famous means there is trust that lies in my work and people will probably pay for it. I think if I become famous I'll be introduced to more factories that build clothes from scrap.

When you make silk-screen prints, what are the things you keep in mind?

When I use the silk-screen machine, I try my best to keep in mind how much pressure I use. If I don't use the same strength while working, the design can get ruined. It depends on the design of the print since each design has a different technique of printing that works the best. I teach Deev the same techniques that I use, so I think he understands them the best.

The most important thing is to make clothes that I want to wear. If people want to wear the clothes I like, then I will make them for them too.

What's a day like in your factory?

I came into work today at 12 so it's kind of a lie but, come in at 8:30 am, 5 days a week, and work until 5 pm. When Deev comes, he cleans up the place and I smoke while I wait for him. I’ll receive deliveries then I open the package and prepare the studio. If I need to make ink, I'll make ink and then eat breakfast. That's my routine, I do the same thing every day, the only difference is the design of the print.

What do you do after work?

Recently, I drive around with Deev and grab dinner, or meet up with friends from Harajuku, Shibuya. Then we just go home, cause we have early mornings. If we drink like we did yesterday, we can't come in for work the next day. So, on weekdays we usually all head home around 10 pm.

Do you have any other hobbies?

I like cars. But this job is a hobby for me. I work because I like clothes so it's pretty much a hobby. It's a really nice environment because I get to do what I love. I get to make clothes whenever I want.

Is there anything else you want to be able to do at this job?

I want to be able to make prints for cool adults, and famous people. If I'm gonna sell clothes in Tokyo, I think it's best to print them in Tokyo, even though it's costly.

What is your proudest project or popup you have done?

My proudest would be the first pop-up I've ever done at Giddra [now closed] on January 24th, 2021. Yeah, that would be my proudest pop-up. I made so much money that day that we doodled on one of the 1000 yen bills [approx. 10 USD]. Typically all my events do well, I wouldn't continue doing them if they didn't. I continue because it's fun.

Another thing is that people still came to the pop-up when it was raining heavily on the second day. They went out of their way to ride the train in the rain to come to see my pop-up, so that made me happy.

What is your dream?

My dream is to buy my favorite watch and many cars by working. I want at least three cars, all Mercedes Benz. I really want a Rolex. That's my goal for this job.

What will you do after you buy those things?

I will continue working hard to maintain that lifestyle. I also want to buy a house with a yard and also have a silk-screen printing machine inside it.

What is your goal for Creation Printing Service?

For now, I want to expand the factory. Next door, there's an English school I want to break through and combine the space with my factory to make it bigger.

What advice has helped you the most?

Whenever my father comes in and checks my graphic designs, he gives me advice. Even though it's only a bit, he has helped me create my projects.

Also, a guy named Renjiro gives amazing advice. He goes to Sophia University and works at the factory as well. He's good at everything, he knows how to use the computer and input data from scratch, something I can’t do. Another guy, Shunki, gives me a lot of good advice being the same age as me. He comes up with skills I never even thought of.

Is there any advice you can give people abroad?

Deev: [laughs] make sure to shake the hands of others with two hands.

Raku: I’m not in the position to give any advice. There is no one around me to give advice to, everyone has good vibes. Everyone just needs to have confidence in whatever they are doing. The only advice I have is to view yourself as number one at whatever you are doing.

FOLLOW SABUKARU ON INSTAGRAM

About the Author:
Mizuki Khoury
Born in Montreal, based in Tokyo. Sabukaru’s senior writer and works as an artist under Exit Number Five.

Photography by Riku Shibata [@_dirtyswan]

Mizuki Khoury