Pak
Matgim

The Story.

I grew up in Northern Virginia playing competitive tennis. To be honest, I never really loved the game itself, but I loved what came with it, and a big part of that was the clothing. What I wore on court was often what made it enjoyable for me. Before every tournament I'd spend far too long deciding on a fit, and only later did I understand why it mattered so much to me. So little in life, and especially in sports, is actually within our control, but what I chose to put on was entirely mine, and there was a genuine sense of calm in that. It may sound trivial, but it was the first time I saw clothing as more than fabric, instead as something that let me feel grounded in myself when everything around me felt uncertain.

I went on to West Point, where I played D1 tennis. I became fascinated by the uniforms and the military wear all around me, the history sewn into them, how every stitch and detail carried meaning. I'll always have respect for that world and the people in it, but it didn't take long to realize it wasn't the place for me. Leaving wasn't easy, but I knew it was the right decision, and it led me to NYU.

Coming from West Point to New York City was a culture shock in the truest sense. At the academy I had no say in anything. What I wore, how I looked, how I moved through a day. It was all decided for me. So when I got to the city, getting dressed became the first thing that was fully mine again. Fashion was how I took control back, how I figured out who I actually was, and how I told the world without saying a word.

The city gave me room to do that. I was surrounded by some of the most creative, original people I'd ever been near, every block its own world, everyone expressing themselves in their own language. I mostly just watched, listened, and learned. There's no wrong way to do it; the loud and the bold have their place and I love that about this city, but the pieces that always pulled me in were the quiet ones, the simple, subtle things that never asked for attention, and somehow held all of it anyway. That's the language that felt like mine.

Around then, I knew it was time for a new pair of jeans. I'd worn the same Uniqlo x Helmut Lang jeans since high school and knew I wanted more. I kept hearing my friends in fashion talk about Japanese denim and the quality of selvedge, so I went deep, nights lost in Reddit threads, reading everything I could about what actually made a great pair. One name kept coming up, over and over: Momotaro. So I found my way to Blue Owl Workshop and bought their collab pair. I loved the way it felt the moment I put it on, the weight, the quality, all of it so considered, and yet so simple on the surface. The closer I looked, the more there was: details someone had agonized over that almost nobody would ever notice. That was the moment I fell in love with Japanese denim and the quality behind it.

That one pair led me to visit Japan, and that trip led to me living there for three months. It changed my life, opening my eyes in ways I'm still catching up to.

What started as a denim obsession turned into something much wider once I was actually there. I'd spend entire days wandering between small shops, finding labels I'd never heard of and learning things no amount of research could teach you, discovering that what I loved about my first pair of Japanese denim ran through everything: the workwear, the tailoring, the knitwear, all of it made by people who cared far more about getting it right than getting it noticed. Somewhere in all that walking, I fell just as hard for the cafés. Tiny rooms with a handful of seats, run by people who had turned a single cup into a lifelong problem to solve. Beans sourced from farms they could tell you everything about, roasts adjusted season to season, brew methods refined down to the second, water temperature, grind size, even the cup it gets served in, all of it chosen for a reason. Nothing was ever finished. Every day was another small correction in pursuit of something they'd probably never call perfect. The haircuts were the same story. Nobody rushed, nobody was trying to get you out the door, and nobody seemed satisfied until you were. That devotion ran through everything there, an unwillingness to let you leave anything less than happy, and it has stayed with me ever since.

Living there taught me to do things with passion and precision, that if you're going to do something at all, you don't do it halfway, you put real love and passion into it. Even more than that, it changed how I saw people. Back in New York, I'd grown used to a certain kind of retail, being ignored the second I walked in, or worse, sized up for how much I might spend and treated like a wallet before a person. Japan was the opposite in every way. Not once did anyone try to squeeze a sale out of me, and these were craftsmen who had every reason to care only about the transaction, yet instead they cared about me. Coming from a world that so often felt transactional, that kind of sincerity broke something open in me. Everyone was so endlessly kind and patient that even without a single shared word we always found our way to each other, building friendships I still hold close over nothing more than a translation app.

Things built with love and real passion are what I care about most, and being able to share them with others is what would bring me true happiness. That's really what Pak Matgim is. It was never only about Japanese clothing, though I love it dearly and it will always be at the heart of what I do. It's about the craftsmanship, the attention to detail, the passion someone pours into their work when they truly care about getting it right. Pieces built by people who obsess over the parts nobody will ever see. Understated at a glance, and far more considered than they let on. Complexity within simplicity.

Everything here is something I believe in, and I hope it finds a place with you. Thanks for looking.