Clothing magnate Maezawa chases spot in business firmament
JAPANESE fashion billionaire Yusaku Maezawa’s first meeting with role model and SoftBank Group Corporation boss Masayoshi Son came in 2010 when they bathed together – a popular communal activity in Japan – on the 26th floor of the tech giant’s headquarters. The next year, the two teamed up to launch a business in China.
“If I was to work under somebody it would definitely be Son. He is the only executive I think about,” Maezawa said in a comment posted to a 2016 Newspicks article about the meeting.
Although Son has been an inspiration for the 42-year-old billionaire, Maezawa has taken a different approach to publicity, saying on Monday that he would be the first private passenger taken around the moon by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
In a project which Maezawa has dubbed Dear Moon, he will bring up to eight artists to inspire works based on the experience.
It will also shine starlight on his publicly listed company Zozo, known as Start Today, and generate media coverage stretching to 2023 and beyond.
Yet his most expensive hobby – Maezawa declined to reveal how much the trip would cost, but said it was “much higher” than the $110 million (R1.62 billion) Basquiat painting he bought last year – may be his riskiest bet. Unlike a Basquiat or Picasso, a trip to the moon cannot be sold to another collector, and only 24 astronauts have ventured beyond Earth’s protective magnetic field.
While success alone helped Son and Fast Retailing’s Tadashi Yanai become household names, Maezawa is a new breed of Japanese billionaire adept at self-promotion, said Parissa Haghirian, professor of Japanese management at Tokyo’s Sophia University.
That has made Maezawa a regular fixture in the country’s gossipy weeklies, with his collection of foreign and Japanese art, fast cars and celebrity girlfriend.
His heavy Twitter use bears more resemblance to Musk than Son, who effectively quit tweeting three years ago. Maezawa uses Twitter to connect with his followers, frequently answering questions on everything from his art collection and hopes for world peace to customer service queries.
That off-the-cuff approachability has at times landed Musk in hot water, and the South African-born billionaire has been criticised for running electric car maker Tesla as a one-man show.
By contrast, Maezawa has in recent years surrounded himself with lieutenants as the business has matured, said Michael Causton, an analyst at Japan-Consuming.
The diminutive Japanese entrepreneur, who as a young man struggled to find clothes that fit, attended a feeder high school for the prestigious Waseda University.
But preferring to be a drummer in a punk band, he ditched college and the escalator to salary man drudgery.
In 2004, he opened the Zozotown online fashion mall that has made him rich. Zozo is now seeking to transform itself into a fashion brand, with a large-scale deployment of its polka-dot Zozosuit, which allows users to upload body measurements and order madeto-measure clothing. – Reuters