PRESS RELEASE: For Immediate Release
Tokyo, JapanJanuary 2018

V&A Licensing in Japan: Six Months and Beyond as Licensing Sales Agent
Following the debut of the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum) brandby ZenWorks and Brandog at Licensing Expo Japan last year,
discussions for new licenses have been proceeding smoothly. Whiledetails are yet to be fully divulged, new V&A inspired product ranges
for clothing accessories and fitness-related products are expected
to be launched this spring. Furthermore, the V&A will once again
exhibit at Licensing Expo Japan 2018 (April 25 to 28; Tokyo BigSight) at a dedicated booth.
V&A Licensing has had a long and active presence in Japan. The
licensees consist of Arakawa for nightwear, East for museum
products, Itochu for LeSportsac, Kuwayama for jewelry, Nikko for table ceramics, Romance
Kosugi for bedlinen, Salonge for home textiles and aprons, People Tree (Fair Trade Japan) for
apparel and fashion accessories, and Moda Japan for imported quilting fabrics. Also, the V&A
was responsible for the planning and curation of the hugely successful DAVID BOWIE is exhibition
that took place in Tokyo in 2017; Sony Music Communications was the licensee for the exhibition
products.

Spring/Summer 2018
bedlinen
fromRomance Kosugi

Autumn/Winter2017
clothing fromPeople Tree

From this core base of licensees, ZenWorks and Brandog are currently targeting an expansion of
the licensing program into new categories including apparel, home interior, personal fashion
accessories, home decoration, stationery, and aroma goods.
For licensees, choosing a design or pattern for licensed product development from the V&A’s vastarchives, can be a seemingly daunting task. To that end, the V&A licensing team provides
licensees and potential licensees with its themes, containing graphics, patterns and motifs thatgroups diﬀerent design concepts into specific visual themes. For example, themes for 2018
include:株式会社ZenWorks ■ ZenWorks Co., Ltd.
〒201-0001東京都狛江市西野川4-33-9 ■ 4-33-9 Nishinogawa, Komae-shi, Tokyo 201-0001, Japan090-6003-7068 ■ info@zenworks.jp ■ www.zenworks.jp

• Arts & Crafts: Arts & Crafts are the V&A’s most comprehensive oﬀering, consisting of carefully
selected choices of wallpapers and textiles from designers such as William De Morgan andWilliam Morris.
• Fashioned from Nature: Fashioned from Nature is the name of a V&A exhibition running from2018 to 2019, and explores the relationship between nature and fashion.
Products created and sold balance the old and the new, digital and traditional, and the plain andpattern.
The V&A has long and active association with Japan and Japanese design:• It has been collecting Japanese art and design since it was founded in 1852 and in its ToshibaGallery visitors can find examples from the one of the world's most comprehensive collectionsof Japanese arts and crafts.
• Scotland’s V&A Museum of Design, Dundee set to open this year, has been designed by Kengo
Kuma, the architect behind the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Stadium. The V&A Dundee will be Kuma’s
first British building.
• Renowned Japanese architecture firm, Maki & Associates, led by Fumihiko Maki, is the designerof the Seaworld Culture & Arts Center in Sekou district of Shenzen, China, that opened lastmonth. The V&A has been working with China Merchants Group (CMG) to support theirambitious plan to develop this new cultural institution focusing on design, called Design Society.
The exhibition spaces include a V&A Gallery featuring more than 250 objects from the V&A
permanent collection. It is the first time the V&A has developed such an internationalcollaboration.
All Japanese licensing business enquiries should be addressed to ZenWorks Co., Ltd. and
Brandog Co., Ltd., the sole licensing sales agent for the V&A brand in Japan. V&A also has a
Kanto-based experienced Japanese staﬀ member who is chief liaison between Japan and the UKfor all product and design approval issues, and is available to support licensees through theirproduct development process.
ZenWorks and Brandog look forward to licensing business enquiries from interested parties.
Contacts• ZenWorks Co., Ltd – Roger Berman. Tel: 090 6003 7068 Email: rmb@zenworks.jp• Brandog Co., Ltd. – Fumihiko Kusama Tel: 046-870-5310 Email: pochi@brandog.net• V&A Enterprises (UK) - Email: licensing@vam.ac.uk
V&A

The V&A is the world’s leading museum of art, design and performance with collections
unrivalled in their scope and diversity. It was established to make works of art available toall and to inspire British designers and manufacturers. Today, the V&A’s collections, whichspan over 5,000 years of human creativity in virtually every medium and from many partsof the world, continue to intrigue, inspire and inform. All profits from licensing are returnedto the Museum, helping to maintain its position as the world’s leading collection of art anddesign, funding exhibitions, research, and collecting for the future.
###株式会社ZenWorks ■ ZenWorks Co., Ltd.
〒201-0001東京都狛江市西野川4-33-9 ■ 4-33-9 Nishinogawa, Komae-shi, Tokyo 201-0001, Japan090-6003-7068 ■ info@zenworks.jp ■ www.zenworks.jp