Aoyama, Monday, showroom shutters back up

Aoyama on Monday morning reads different from Sunday. The cherry-blossom corridor is empty. Showrooms have their shutters back up by ten. Lemaire Tokyo at ten-fifteen had three buyers in the lower lobby. The junior assistants moved differently than yesterday.

Coffee at Bear-Pond Espresso Omotesando before the showroom run. Two senior editors at the back counter, both alone, both reading. Industry-Monday-quiet-pulse is its own tempo.

At Lemaire Aoyama the new SS27 showroom proofs were just out. A second French-Japanese junior assistant on the floor I had not seen Sunday. LFJT-cohort-marker, twenty-six or twenty-seven, working a buyer card. Quiet hands. Card-exchange at eleven-thirty, brief conversation, ten minutes.

Hiroo at noon. Hyke showroom Monday-quiet. One stylist setting up a returning-buyer rail. Mediterranean-line female, Tokyo-Hafu-coded, mid-twenties. Stayed long enough to confirm look-type but not for full approach. Field-mark, will return Wednesday if rail stays out.

Lemaire-junior at eleven-thirty is tonight's setcard. The Hyke-stylist sits in the field-book for now.