Mai Ikuzawa concedes that white denim is perhaps not the best thing to wear when oil, grease and racing fuel are all around. But she didn’t want her capsule clothing collection – launched together with the American artist Daniel Arsham at Goodwood Revival earlier in 2024 and now online – to be the usual motoring merchandise, which tends to mean lots of baseball caps.
‘I wanted something properly high-end, especially since Japanese-made products are still recognised for their craft and quality,’ she says. ‘It was bad enough with all the mud [at the UK motoring event this year], with me freaking out about my brand-new Nikes.’
Ikuzawa comes from prime motoring stock – she is the daughter of Tetsu Ikuzawa, the Japanese former racing driver and racing team manager, the first Japanese driver to compete in European championships (key years being from the late 1960s through to the 1980s), and a man appreciated for both his personal style and the bold red graphics, crane logo and typography he designed as his racing colours.
It’s those – filtered through Arsham’s lens – that grace the likes of trunk bags, stadium and varsity jackets and long-sleeve T-shirts in the streetwear-oriented Team Ikuzawa collection, which Mai Ikuzawa and Arsham unveiled alongside a Porsche 904 GTS in bespoke livery, one set to make appearances at various motoring events during 2025, including The Ice at St Moritz in February.
‘There’s still an aesthetic side to car culture that is under-explored’
Mai Ikuzawa
‘Other teams said they’d never seen anything like it [when my father unveiled the designs],’ says Mai Ikuzawa, who is now slowly reviving the Team Ikuzawa archive – notably its documentary photography, racing overalls and a number of vintage Porsches – and operates a brand consultancy. This, Bow Wow International, specialises in advising automotive companies such as Rolls-Royce, BMW, Aston Martin and the Venturi Grand Prix Team on their lifestyle strategies
‘[With Team Ikuzawa] there was a combination of fashion and art that back then which was very rare in motorsports,’ she adds. ‘Obviously I don’t think I would have been so into style or cars without his influence. I’d be given a lot of toy cars, go motor crossing. It was the kind of brainwashing I now put my own children through. But [years later] there’s still an aesthetic side to car culture that is under-explored.’
Ikuzawa, who also released a limited edition watch in collaboration with Tag Heuer last year and is now working on a second capsule collection, argues that the motorsports world has yet to successfully bridge the gap with luxury lifestyle: ‘Some partnerships feel a little forced, as though the two worlds don’t yet understand each other yet,’ the trained stunt driver argues. Perhaps rectifying this, she suggests, could also be a way for the industry to embrace growing interest in cars among women.
‘A car is such an ego-driven product for many men. But there needs to be more women in motorsport and car culture generally’
Mai Ikuzawa
‘It’s quite disappointing to me to see how women are still excluded from the car world. Go to a [luxury] car dealership and you’ll experience a tremendous amount of sexism – the assumption that you must be someone’s girlfriend,’ says Ikuzawa, who also considers herself a champion for Japan’s ‘overlooked’ car culture (‘Ask people to name cool cars and, unfairly, not many people will cite the likes of Nissan,’ she notes).
‘Maybe it’s because a car is such an ego-driven product for many men. But there needs to be more women in motorsport and car culture generally. And one way in is less emphasis on engine parts and more on the style and the sense of adventure that cars embody. There’s a softer way for car culture to be presented, and that’s what I’d like to pursue.’
DanielArsham.com, @DanielArsham
