Two Japanese designers have adopted Britain to develop textiles and designs under the Double O label. Marian Buckley meets the self-confessed cat obsessed couple whose playful creations are the antithesis of uniformed fashion. Rie Watanabe and Kenichi Nakayama originally hail from Tokyo but are now proud residents of Peckham and Brixton respectively and work from a design studio in Deptford. Rie, a designer/stylist, fell in love with London from old black and white films and cites Michael Caine as her hero. "I just had to come to London," she says. "It always looked like such an amazing city in films. I just knew I would live here." Rie is a quite woman, who spends much of our interview listening with partner Kenichi translating and sketching elongated cats. She shines like a star when talking about her favourite things: clothes, their studio, cat Dot who inspired their last collection, her love of Morris dancing and superstitions. Today she has brought along her lucky sunglasses for the photoshoot.

Kenichi is a Renaissance man. When he was 12 he became involved in street dancing. "Back in the early 1980s, before hip hop and break dancing were around, I had a street dancing group. Then Jeff Daniels of Shalamar invited me to come to London and choreograph the television programme 'Soul Train'." Back in those days, Kenichi wore handmade skirts and hung out at London's infamous Taboo club with Boy George and David Bowie. "It was a crazy time," he admits. After this he studied at Central Saint Martins, worked for Issey Miyake and Koji Tatsuno but also found the time to become a qualified chef and an accomplished tailor and textile designer. Both Rie and Kenichi have designer genes. Rie comes from a family of kimono makers and although Kenichi's father is an architect, his grandparents were also professional kimono makers and his mother worked in fashion. The pair met at an exhibition in London and after collaborating on a theatre project (making a staggering 244 outfits in only two months for a production of 'Blue Angel' - pictured right) decided to become a team in 1998. The name Double 0 is based on a symbol they drew one day and liked. "It could be seen as catŐs eyes, or whatever," says Kenichi. "We just liked this symbol when we drew it and it was us." read more »

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