Why I felt Byakuya was necessary

Redesigning ownership as time

1. Thoughts from winning the A' Design Award

Byakuya won the A' Design Award.

That was, of course, a happy event. But at the same time, I felt a bit strange. Byakuya was not simply an attempt to create a product with a beautiful appearance. It was not just designing an application UI. Furthermore, it was not that I wanted to create technology for proof of ownership.

What I wanted to handle was the very time during which clothes are made, chosen, used, and passed on.

The moment clothes are bought, they leave the brand's hands.

Who used them?
How did they deteriorate?
Where were they repaired?
Who were they passed on to?

The time that follows becomes almost invisible.

However, isn't it actually after that point that the true value of clothing is born? I have felt a sense of discomfort about that for a long time.

The brand-new state is certainly beautiful. The completed silhouette, the pristine fabric, the tension of not yet having adapted to anyone's body. It is the moment when clothing looks strongest as a product.

But clothing is not meant to end there.

It is worn. It is washed. It gets wrinkled. It rubs. It fades. It is repaired. It is stored. It is passed on to someone else. It is forgotten, and then found again.

Clothing passes through time.

And there is value that can only be born within that time.

Winning the A' Design Award was a significant response, in the sense that Byakuya was received not as mere technology, but as a design that deals with the relationship between ownership and time.

The reason I decided to create Byakuya, when boiled down, lies there.

2. The starting point was more concrete

There wasn't a grand philosophy from the beginning.

The starting point was a more realistic and concrete problem.

Countermeasures against resellers.
Secondary market management.
Ownership history.
Proof of authenticity.
Ongoing relationships with purchasers.

When you are on the side of making clothes, a strong disconnection occurs at a certain moment. The product is purchased, shipped, and reaches the buyer's hands. From that moment on, the brand can know almost nothing about that garment.

Who owns it?
How are they wearing it?
How much is it cherished?
Was it sold?
Was it given away?
Was it repaired?
Does it still exist?

These things are invisible.

The relationship between the brand and the buyer seems strongest at the moment of purchase. But in reality, it fades rapidly immediately after. You can maintain contact through newsletters or social media. However, that is not a relationship with the garment itself.

It seems as though the brand is connected to the 'buyer,' but in reality, it is not connected to the 'garment after purchase.'

I felt uncomfortable with this disconnection.

Why are the clothes we make completely cut off the moment they are purchased? Why is the time that follows not treated as value? Why is something like the life of a garment placed outside the system?

Byakuya began with that question.

3. The thumbnailing of fashion

Modern fashion is becoming easier to consume as images.

Social media, e-commerce, short-form videos, looks, feeds, advertisements. Clothes need to look strong for just a moment on a screen. They need to make people stop while scrolling. They need to be understood immediately within a small image.

As a result, clothes are required to have the strength of a 'thumbnail.'

Brand new condition.
Strong colors.
Easy-to-understand shapes.
Eye-catching details.
Symbolism that conveys instantly.

Of course, that in itself is not bad. Visual strength is an important element of fashion. Clothes are meant to be seen and exist within visual culture.

However, thumbnail-ized fashion is difficult to handle with time.

On a screen, the time spent wearing something is hard to convey. Signs of repair can look like noise. Aging is sometimes only recognized as a difference from a new product. The softness that conforms to the body, the owner's habits, and the contours created by being worn many times are difficult to read at the speed of a thumbnail.

The more clothes become images, the more they lose time.

But real clothes are not images. They are matter, things that touch the body, things that wear out, and things that are affected by the environment. They get wet in the rain. They are exposed to sunlight. They rub against bags. They sit on chairs. They absorb sweat. They are washed. They are dried.

Those traces of time are patina.

Leather gains a luster.
Denim fades in color.
Cuffs become soft.
Fabric develops a sheen.
Repair marks become a part of the garment.

A value distinct from the perfection of a new product emerges there.

I wanted to address this value more directly. I wanted to think about the value of clothing not just through photos of new items, but by including the time spent after they are used.

4. A sense of discomfort with ownership

The existing concept of ownership is far too two-dimensional.

In many cases, ownership is judged by whether or not something was bought. Receipts, order histories, shipping records, proof of ownership. These indicate that a person has acquired a product.

However, that alone is not enough.

Can you say you own something just because you bought it?
Is it ownership if you have never worn it even once?
Are the time spent wearing it for years and the state of it being stored unopened the same kind of ownership?
Do repairing and continuing to use something and selling it immediately have the same meaning?

Legally or commercially, ownership is established that way. But in a cultural sense, isn't ownership something much deeper?

Ownership of clothing is not merely a right. It is a relationship with the body, a relationship with time, and a relationship with memory.

Putting your arms through the sleeves many times.
Placing it within your daily life.
Washing it when it gets dirty.
Fixing it when it breaks.
Being seen by someone in it.
Passing it on to someone else.
Talking about that piece of clothing.
Connecting with the maker or the previous owner through that clothing.

There is a depth there that cannot be explained by purchase alone.

I call this the 'depth of ownership'.

The depth of ownership is not simply a state of possessing something. It is the layers of how much time you have spent with an object, how much you have engaged with it, how many traces you have left on it, and how much you have inherited it.

Existing systems are suited for recording the moment of purchase. However, they are not suited for handling the depth of ownership that accumulates afterward.

The reason I thought Byakuya was necessary lies here.

I wanted to treat ownership not as a point, but as a stratification within time.

5. How I designed Byakuya

Byakuya is not merely proof of ownership.

Of course, recording ownership is important. Being an authentic product, who possesses it, and how it was handed over. There is meaning in recording these things.

However, what lies at the heart of Byakuya is not the proof itself.

At the center is the structure of time.

How clothing is born, chosen, used, and witnessed. I wanted to create a structure to treat that process as the depth of ownership.

In Byakuya, I am considering four major layers.

Creation.
Purchase.
Patina.
Witness.

Creation is the time of the maker.

Clothing does not appear suddenly. Materials are chosen, shapes are conceived, sewn, adjusted, failed, and made again. Behind it lies the maker's judgment and time.

Usually, that time is compressed the moment the product is completed. It is summarized into tags, prices, product photos, and descriptions. However, there are originally many more layers there. Why that material? Why that shape? What kind of trial and error took place? What was kept, and what was discarded?

Creation places that time as the first layer of the ownership structure.

Purchase is a choice.

A purchase is not merely a payment. It is the act of choosing that item from among many clothes. It is the decision to welcome that garment into your life.

In modern e-commerce, purchasing is streamlined. You add to cart, pay, and it is delivered. It is designed to proceed with as little friction as possible. While convenient, it can also dilute the meaning of the choice.

Purchase in Byakuya is the starting point of ownership. It is a layer that records not just the fact that it was bought, but the act of having chosen it.

Patina is the trace left behind by use.

This is the most important part.

Clothing changes as it is used. It moves away from its brand-new state. However, the way it moves away can become its value. Scratches, fading, repair marks, wrinkles, softness. Within what is usually treated as deterioration, there is evidence of time.

Byakuya did not want to place these traces of time outside of value.

I wanted to treat moving away from being brand new not as mere depreciation, but as the depth of ownership. Of course, not all deterioration is beautiful. I do not wish to affirm reckless consumption. But there is a strength that can only be born from being used for a long time.

Patina is the layer that records that strength.

Witness is the person who observes.

Ownership does not end with the owner alone. The maker may witness it. The next owner may receive the past. People around may remember the garment. The person who repaired it may also touch the time of that garment.

While clothing is an individual's possession, it passes through the eyes and hands of many people.

Witness is a layer for handling that relationship.

Through these four layers, Byakuya attempts to capture ownership not just as 'whether it was purchased,' but as 'what kind of time it has passed through.'

6. Why handle time?

If only new items are placed at the center of value, fashion will forever continue to chase the next novelty.

New arrivals.
New colors.
New materials.
New silhouettes.
New collaborations.
New campaigns.

Fashion is a culture driven by novelty. I have no intention of denying that power. New clothes have the power to change one's mood. Shapes never seen before have the power to update the body and senses.

However, if only novelty is valued, clothing is consumed in a short period of time.

The moment it is bought becomes the peak, and after that, its value declines. The moment it is no longer brand new, it loses its strength as a product. Desire shifts to the next thing, and then the next.

Within this structure, using things for a long time is rarely treated as a value.

Repairing.
Caring for.
Wearing for years.
Breaking in to the body.
Passing on to someone else.

Even though such actions have rich meaning in reality, they are not sufficiently recorded within the market or the system.

That is the reason why Byakuya sought to handle time.

Clothes used for a long time have a value that new clothes do not.
Repaired clothes have not just the fact that they were broken, but a relationship where they were used enough to be fixed.
Faded clothes have a record of the body that has passed through time.
Inherited clothes have the time of the previous owner remaining in them.

The value of ownership is not determined only at the moment of purchase. Rather, it changes, amplifies, and sometimes takes on an entirely different meaning within the time after purchase.

In order to handle that change, it was necessary to include time in the design.

7. What remains in the AI era

With AI, images and styles can now be generated in large quantities.

Visuals of clothes, looks, mood boards, pattern ideas, and advertising images. Parts of expressions that previously required time and technology can now be generated in a short amount of time.

This is a major change.

I am neither in a position to simply affirm nor deny AI. AI is a tool, an environment, and already a part of reality. The question is what becomes thinner and what, conversely, becomes thicker because of it.

AI can generate a brand-new state.

Like the image of clothes that have not yet been worn by anyone. Perfect lighting. Ideal texture. A non-existent model. Non-existent styling. A non-existent room. Non-existent memories.

Those can be generated.

However, the time of clothes that have truly been worn cannot be generated.

Generated wrinkles are different from wrinkles formed by actually being worn for years. Generated stains are different from traces left by a certain day's rain, work, or life. Generated repair marks are different from the traces of the decision to keep wearing something even after fixing it.

AI can create the appearance of traces. But it cannot create the fact that those traces have truly passed through time.

I believe that part of the value of the future lies here.

As images increase, the value of time that actually existed rises. As styles become generatable, records that have passed through a body become important. As brand-new images can be created infinitely, the irreversibility of used objects gains meaning.

Owning clothes is not simply possessing an object. It is involving your own body and time with that object.

In the AI era, the depth of ownership will become more important.

This is because it can only be born from time that has actually passed, not from generated images.

8. Byakuya as a design after purchase

I do not think of Byakuya merely as tech.

NFTs, blockchain, proof of ownership, secondary market management. It can be explained with such words. In fact, there are times when they are necessary. But those are means, not the center.

At the center is designing the time after purchase.

Much of fashion is strongly designed up until the point of purchase. Product photos, looks, e-commerce, payment, delivery, the unboxing experience. There is a lot of ingenuity there.

However, the time after purchase is almost entirely undesigned.

How is it worn? How does it change? Where is it repaired? To whom is it passed on? How is it recorded? How is it seen through to the end?

In truth, the value of clothes begins there.

Mass production, mass distribution, and mass consumption. Since the modern era, fashion has developed within this structure. The fact that many people have become able to easily obtain clothing has a clear significance. Mass production is not evil. Distribution is not evil. I do not intend to simply deny consumption itself.

However, that structure has worked strongly in the direction of rotating clothing in a short period of time.

Make.
Sell.
Buy.
Use.
Discard.
Make again.

As the speed of this cycle increases, the time of the clothing becomes thinner. Ownership becomes shorter, repairs decrease, and passing things on becomes the exception. Before clothing can enter deeply into life, it is replaced by the next piece of clothing.

That is precisely why a design for after purchase is necessary.

What Byakuya is heading toward is a design that includes long-term ownership, repair, patina, inheritance, and relationships.

Do not end it by selling the clothes.
Do not end it by buying them.
Do not end it with them being brand new.
Do not close it off to just the owner.
Do not talk about it only through the brand.

Assuming that clothing passes through time, we design it to include that time as well.

Being recognized at the A' Design Award was, for me, an indication that this way of thinking can hold up not just as a 'tech mechanism' but also as a 'design problem'.

Design here does not just mean decoration or appearance.

What do we leave behind as value?
Which time do we record?
Whose relationships do we reconnect?
How do we continue the relationship between objects and people after purchase?

Designing such a structure is also design.

In Byakuya, 'design after purchase' is the term for that.

9. byakuya.io

The structure of Byakuya is placed at byakuya.io.

It is not a place to assert something with a loud voice. It is not a place to show off the novelty of technology. What is there is a structure for treating the relationship between clothing, ownership, and time a little more carefully.

Time created.
Time chosen.
Time used.
Time witnessed.

We place these not outside the clothing, but as part of the value of the clothing.

It is not yet a completed answer. Rather, it is closer to a question given form.

What is ownership?
Where is the value of clothing born?
How can time be recorded?
How does the relationship between a brand and a purchaser continue after purchase?
In the AI era, what meaning do matter and the body hold?

byakuya.io places that question as an implementation.

10. Redesigning ownership over time

Byakuya is not a proof-of-ownership system.

At the very least, that is not what I built it to be.

Byakuya is an attempt to redesign ownership not as a moment of purchase, but as participation that accumulates over time.

There is the time of the person who makes the clothes.
There is the time of the person who chooses them.
There is the time spent wearing, using, damaging, and repairing them.
There is the time of the person who watches over them and passes them on.

Isn't ownership something that encompasses all of that?

The value of clothing cannot be fully explained by the mere fact of having bought it. The strength of clothing cannot be fully told by the beauty of a new item alone. The sense of an object entering a person's life cannot be captured by the perfection of an image alone.

Clothing does not end at the moment it is new.

Rather, that is where it begins.

There are things that only become strong after passing through time.

Byakuya is an attempt to handle that quiet strength.