I took a stroll to my dear friend, Makoto Horisaki, founder of Horisaki House of Jewellery for an interview and a shoot in his apartment in Stockholm.

YOU WERE BORN IN THE TOWN OF ISE IN JAPAN. HOW WAS LIFE THERE?
Growing up in Ise was tough. I didn’t like Japan. School was very strict. You start at eight o’clock and you finish at five. Then you run home, you chug your dinner down and then you get back for evening school. I don’t think Swedish kids would be able to cope.

AND THEN YOU LEFT JAPAN?
Yes. I left Japan for Sweden when I was 13 years old.

You have your own jewellery brand. And the story is quite unique.
I’ve always felt the need of creating things. I started with designing shoes and clothes. Then it struck me, “Hey, my father works with welding”. About thirty years ago, before I was born, he moved to Spain to study the language. The first day of the course, he discovered that he was studying an older type of Spanish. Not the one he wanted. He dropped out and decided to travel through Europe. He ended up in Stockholm, where he met my mother. And during that stay, he saw lots of forged stuff. That got him thinking. So he and my mother married and she dropped out of college and they moved together to Japan and he started his workshop.

I called him in 2005 with this idea of the jewellery business. That year was busy for me. I’d just started working at Weekday. I had to put it on hold. It took three more years before we picked up the project.

Though, to be honest, it started out a bit differently. We began the project because my father felt sorry for my brother. He has hardly anything to do, well except for producing his own music and creating art. He lives in this old shack in the woods outside Ise. But hey, it’s fine by me. I like it. Our fathers plan is that he’ll learn from him and later on take over the business.

Anyhow. I make the designs. And then I send it to my father in Ise. He welds everything and sends it back to me.

What inspired you to make the first collection? I can see that fishing is one thing.
Fishing and hunting. The hunting in your everyday life. This bracelet for instance. You can take it off and turn it and use it as a knuckle duster. Survival. You know.

The earring, in the shape of a fishing hook , differs from the other jewellery in the collection. Once you’ve put it in, you can’t take it out without clipping it in two halves. And then you’ve destroyed it. You can’t re-use it.

In the creative process, what types of obstacles did you run into?
One big issue was how to design the necklaces. You know. Sometimes you get the feeling that everything’s already been made. You can’t re-invent it. I wanted to do something that can be hung in different ways or combined with something else. My necklaces can be threaded differently. There’s no loops, only hooks and the holes in the chain. Hang it your way.

What’s coming up?
I will have a vernissage at the JUS Store in Stockholm this spring. I will show up some new stuff and my new jewellery collection. I’m currently looking into creating unique fishing poles. But that’s another story. First things first.

Horisaki Jewellery can be found in stores in Stockholm, Berlin, London and online at Horisaki.com.