Hitomi Okawa

Hitomi Okawa

Birth	March 30, 1947
Associated Brand(s)	MILK, MILK BOY

Hitomi Okawa (大川ひとみ), born March 30, 1947 in Hyogo prefecture, is best known as the founder of MILK. When Hitomi Okawa started as a designer there were not many DC brands. Okawa attended an art university in Kyoto because of a love of drawing that started in elementary school. She used to draw illustrations of girls and make things like paper dolls. At the age of 11, she drew many pictures of the same clothes and changed the patterns (polka dots, checks, flowers). She grew up the daughter of a doctor, in an affluent home where her mother would read magazines like Harper's Bazaar with 1950s and 1960s American fashion. In America which she considered the driving force behind fashion at the time, there was a shift at that time between haute couture and ready to wear. However, she didn't really see that in Japan yet, so she had to draw it and create it herself. She also looked at American fashion catalogs as a child, and cites this study of clothing in magazines and catalogs as her earliest sort of "studying" of fashion.

Her parents wanted her to be a doctor, but by the time she entered university, she had developed an interest in Photography. She said that around this time, Fashion photographers were starting to emerge in Japan, and so she joined the camera club at her university. She was inspired by the work of Yoshihiro Tatsuki. It was so hot in the darkroom when she was developing photos, that she often wore a swimsuit.

After graduating from Seian College of Art and Design, Department of Design, she started MILK in Harajuku. She wanted to start in the coolest place possible, so she decided on Central Apartment. She had come to Harajuku when she was either in High School or her first year of University and had stood in the middle of the pedestrian bridge right off Harajuku station, and she looked down at Omotesando and thought "Here is the coolest place, I want to be here!", and that's why she chose that location. The Bridge doesn't exist any more, it was torn down in 2011. She wasn't aware at the time that Central Apartment was a popular place for creators, she just thought that street was nice and that Central Apartment was modern and cool. In a 2021 interview she confessed that she sometimes still goes up to the pedestrian bridge on the Yoyogi Park side and looks at Omotesando, and when she does, she feels the same way she did when she was 20 years old.

MILK's first store was on the first floor corner of Central Apartment It was a long and narrow shop only about 33 square metres, with a warehouse in the back. The long shape meant that there was a lot of wall space, so she would pin up posters and put clothing in between. It was the age of psychedelic and flower children and the posters reflected that.

She started her brand because the types of clothing she liked weren't available in Japan, and her design skills are all self-taught. Her parents invested in her fledgling business, and her brother and sister also helped her out. She no longer remembers how she picked the name MILK. She was inspired by military uniforms and how they have custom buttons and custom fabric and details like that. She made cute girl's clothes because she liked cute girls clothes and no one else in Tokyo was selling that style. She also looked at what was popular in London at the time because the trends in Tokyo and London were very similar at that time.

As of 2015, Hitomi Okawa was still the head designer for both MILK and MILKBOY. She sometimes helps out in the shop as a salesperson and often will go to tea with the kids in the shop. She says all the MILK salespeople are cute, so just being with them makes her feel happy.