Uncovering Number (N)ine: Interview with Al Abayan

If you’re a fan of Number (N)ine or TheSoloist, much credit is due to Al Abayan for helping develop the legacy behind these historic brands with cult followings. Al has assisted Takahiro Miyashita for nearly three decades, since the earliest years of Number (N)ine.

Al was largely responsible for many of the details found in the Number (N)ine stores’ interiors such as how furnishings were styled, he also oversaw both label’s expansions into the western market. Having once managed Number (N)ine’s store in TriBeCa, Al now owns his own store in the same neighborhood, 

RE:AL which serves as both a permanent showroom for TheSoloist and a curated boutique gift-shop.In addition to fulfilling a creative and business consultant role, Al is more importantly a long-time friend to Takahiro Miyashita. Al’s involvement in the industry goes well beyond his work with Takahiro; his store recently expanded into a revolving showroom called, 

STUDIO – RE:ALABAYAN which champions designers such as Nicolas Andreas Taralis. Al has worked on several impactful projects in TriBeCa, including lending his interior design skills to a restaurant/gallery in the neighborhood, North Bar, and partnering in launching the luxury lifestyle store Patron of the New.Al Abayan was more than welcoming when I asked if he would be interested in participating in an exclusive interview for ARCHIVE.pdf.

The two of us sat down in his newly opened showroom and shared an open conversation pertaining to his background in the fashion industry, his friendship with Takahiro Miyashita and his plans for the future.

When it comes to interviews or articles about you, there is almost nothing out there. Is this a conscious decision you made?

You know, I love that you’re starting with this. I moved here to bring Takahiro’s brand, Number (N)ine, to America. He’s like a brother, he’s like family to me – we’ve known each other now for 30 years, I think we met in ’94. I moved here to develop his brand, not me.

I gave him that respect. Takahiro gave me the respect to be myself, but I was here to develop him and the brand. I was part of it, but it was really about him and building his name. I moved here in the mid-90s from San Francisco, I had a brand there and that’s how we met.

It was called One by Two right?

Yeah. Daiki Suzuki from Engineered Garments and Nepenthes, and his boss Keizo Shimizu found me. They bought a couple of collections. Takahiro was working for them and they brought him to America on their buying trip as they were going around to different cities. Daiki was living in San Francisco at the time and they said, “Here’s Takahiro, someone new on our team, will you take him out?” Takahiro was 20, I was 24, so they’re like, “Take him out, have fun.” My fashions were bright colored at that moment. We would get dressed up, go out, drink and have fun. That’s how we met. It was like the opposite kind of; he was buying for Nepenthes and I had my own collection.

Funny how the roles sort of reversed, right?

Yeah so then fast forward, I’d go to Japan, they would represent my brand there. We were originally going to do Number (N)ine in San Francisco. But I thought, what are we doing? The brand makes sense in New York.

Pursuing a career in fashion and starting your own brand, was that something you always wanted to do?

I grew up in Santa Barbara and I left at 19. I graduated at 17 from highschool and did a year and a half of junior college of business management and finance. I wanted to work in a tall building in a bank because numbers were really easy to me. I just liked that idea. But when I moved to San Francisco, I wanted to go to FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising).

When I found out how expensive it was, I thought, oh my god. My mother couldn’t pay for my school, so I would have to do it myself and I was never going to be able to pay for that.So I chose another route, I got a job. I worked in Palo Alto for Saks Fifth Avenue where I was doing visuals. I left Saks and started my own little business going around stores asking if I could do their windows.

After that, I worked for Marithé et François Girbaud in San Francisco. I started to do their floor layouts, merchandising and sales.And then I just started. I went to Europe, bought fabric and just started making hats. I would sew them in my closet and then I took them to a store called MAC (Modern Appealing Clothing). They’re still in San Francisco, they carry cool local designers. They bought like ten of my hats and sold them all in a week. They asked me if I could make more and I said, “That took months to sew.”

You were really starting to experience the production process.

Yeah, keeping up with demand. I just liked home sewing, you know?

Did you teach yourself how to sew? Was there someone in your family who knew how to?

I don’t really know where that came from. I think where the design part came in was that I was always aware of space. I’d tell my mom that the walls need painting or the curtains need to be re-hung. I was always concerned with layout, I’d always want to move the furniture around.

So now whenever I go into a room and I see something out of place in a store or my showroom, I’m like, we have got to fix that. You know, it’s just like innate to me.

I think that’s the case for a lot of people who find themselves with a career in interior design. It’s an intrinsic need to fix and organize. Not entirely something you pursue to learn. But of course there are some things you can learn from other people.

Yeah, you can learn the fundamentals which they’ll tell you when you’re starting in merchandising. Like the Pyramid Principle. But that’s just one way of doing it. From a creative side and also just that neat way of doing things, you kind of just have it.So that’s how it began, I started sewing and I came to New York in ’95, ’96? I was doing the boutique trade show at the Javits Center and had a lot of fun. I sold to Barneys, Amalgamated, Screaming Mimi’s and Fred Segal.

But then I started to feel complacent doing all of that and living in San Francisco. I didn’t feel challenged, I was in my late 20’s and I felt like a big fish swimming in a small pond.I kept in touch with Takahiro who had left Nepenthes around that time and just started Number (N)ine. I remember helping him because he needed sunglasses for his shop. We were just young kids trying to make something different for him and myself. We started to talk of maybe me coming to Japan. He never told me to stop doing my brand.

So how long were you doing One by Two after Number (N)ine was founded in 96?

I was doing my brand up until 2001.

Oh wow.

I had stopped the “seasonal” thing, because I was just making t-shirts and selling it to Japanese clients at that point. I just wasn’t getting anything out of it. I had a store in San Francisco and my own little factory in Potrero Hill, but I wasn’t impassioned anymore. I started working with marketing companies doing uniform designs for Procter & Gamble. I did a uniform for Coca Cola once.

Are there images of your brand at all online? I did some searching and couldn’t find anything.

Probably. I was going to bring – I have this binder where I keep all my One by Two stuff. It was written about in the San Francisco Chronicle once. San Francisco was really good to me. Those were my formative years and made me into the individual I am today. I love San Francisco and I wanted to make it work there. There was a design community in San Francisco, but eventually I gave up and decided it was never going to happen.

I came to New York and thought, this is where I am supposed to be. You could feel the energy and well, it was the next chapter. That’s why I always wanted to drive on the sidewalks to get around people in San Francisco. You come here and that happens. You know, ‘get out of my way, we’ve got stuff to get done!’

You can tell the Number (N)ine Store had San Francisco elements, such as carrying City Lights Bookstore merchandise.

Yeah, yeah!

It just feels very San Francisco. A place you’d find there with some alternative musicians hanging out, books and records piled up everywhere.

Well that’s where Takahiro and I met. Being young and connecting – saying to each other we kind of have the same idea, philosophy even though we’re very different. We both came with no formal training in fashion. He was very particular in the way he did things and I’m very particular in the way I do things, we respected that about each other. That’s one of the most important things, that we respect each other. I think that’s why our relationship has been so strong.

Did you see Takahiro as a designer when you first met him? Since he was working as a buyer and doing press.

Yeah because he was also a stylist and he was working with all the magazines. He had this energy, this kind of flair of putting things together from a styling standpoint. I loved that. Anyone can make clothes, but it’s about how you put it together.

Making it all cohesive.

Yeah, yeah. So that’s the beginning. As time went on, it’s the way he took things apart and reconstructed them, turning the styling into the design of the garment. It got really deep. That was intriguing to me because I came from not having any money. We always made things, dyed things, we bleached them. So the way he built things and always having that vintage element in there spoke to me. There was this synergy and I wanted to be around that. I decided, I don’t need to design, I’m a part of this.

Did you feel your creative desires were still being utilized because you were working as a creative consultant?

Right, yeah. We would go on research trips together for every collection after each show he did. We would travel across the U.S since that’s where he always wanted to go. He would say, let’s go to three cities. We’re going to do Portland, Austin and Los Angeles and I want to look for these things. He’d have his two assistants, myself and him, maybe a shop manager – always like three to five people.

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