That was the spark. The moment Yuki Matsuda became obsessed.

There was no business plan.
No grand brand strategy.
Just a teenager in Osaka, standing in front of a mirror wearing a stiff pair of Levi's 501s, feeling something unusual.
Not the usual stiffness of new denim—something deeper, like a living echo of the past stitched into the fabric.
That was the spark. The moment Yuki Matsuda became obsessed.

Not with fashion.
But with purpose. Why things are made the way they are. Why they endure. Why they disappear.

Japan had already absorbed American aesthetics. But Yuki didn’t want the surface—he wanted the source.

In his youth, he worked at a pioneering select shop in Osaka’s Amerikamura that imported clothing and shoes from the U.S., U.K., and France.
Behind the store was a vintage shop where his close friend worked, and the two spent every day talking only about clothing and footwear.
Back then, vintage wasn’t collectible. Only a handful of sharp-eyed individuals quietly gathered such pieces.
But even then, there was real magic—objects that could defy time.

At 18, Yuki moved to Los Angeles.
His job was simple: find things that would sell in Japan.
And for him, it wasn’t hard. At trade shows—especially the California Mart—he would spot the real things, negotiate, buy, and send them home.

This was the 1980s. In Japan, interest in American sportswear, denim, and vintage was exploding.
Yuki barely spoke English. He carried a dictionary. He moved from show to show, always searching for the next item, the next story, the next unknown culture.

In between, he discovered something else: flea markets.
Rose Bowl. Long Beach. Alameda.
Places where American culture sat in silence, waiting to be understood.

A denim chore coat with paint.
Boots worn for half a century.
Military jackets sewn for function, worn with soul.

He didn’t just buy—he studied. Observed. Learned.
Each piece became part of an internal library, organized by technique, purpose, and time.

And he didn’t just sell clothes. He told stories.
Soon, designers, collectors, stylists came to him, drawn by something they couldn’t find anywhere else.

The one who believed in him the most was his partner, Megumi.
She bought him a fax machine in 1989 to make it official.
They named it Meg Company—not as a brand, but to make it real.

Later, Yuki met the legendary vintage dealer Bobby from Boston, who deepened his eye for construction.
Every seam, every material, every finish told a story—like a map that pointed to a time and place.
Clothing stopped being objects. They became time you could wear.
Wrinkles in the elbows, fading at the cuffs, sun-drenched collars—all telling a quiet story.

Without realizing it, Meg Company began moving with a simple conviction:
Make only what matters. Respect materials. Tell stories through things.

Out of that conviction, Yuketen was born.

For Yuki, a shoe wasn’t complete until it was worn. It had to mold to your foot, adapt to your walk, change with your life.
That’s what Yuketen set out to make: footwear that carried memory.

He traveled across America to find the last remaining handsewn shoemakers.
Horween leather, vegetable-tanned hides, thick French calf, Italian roughouts.
Every stitch, every thickness—there had to be a reason.

Each pair would deepen and grow with the wearer.
To Yuki, this was functional art—craft for your feet that told your story.

Then came Monitaly.

The name came from three loves: his daughter Monica, the culture and food and spirit of Italy, and his lifelong reverence for military construction.

Monitaly wasn’t about nostalgia. It was about reimagining.
He took classic American styles—IVY, Trad, military, workwear—and redesigned them into what he himself wanted to wear now.

A military parka cut like a suit.
A down vest with unexpected softness.
He would make 10, 20 prototypes—just to get it right.

He hoped that, 30 years from now, someone might find a Monitaly piece in a vintage store and say:
“This was made with care.”

Monitaly wasn’t about chasing trends. It was a question he kept asking himself.

The third brand was Chamula.

It began in 1995, when Yuki traveled to the village of Chamula in Chiapas, Mexico.
Donkeys pulled carts. Shepherds walked the hills. Spanish didn’t work there—the people spoke Mayan.

Up in the mountains, armed groups known locally as “bandits”—including the EZLN—were active. Yuki ran into them more than once.
They rode horses, carrying rifles and machetes, but showed no interest in him.
With long hair and a beard, he may have looked more suspicious than anyone.

Among all this, there was weaving. Spinning. Embroidery. Faith.

What truly struck him was the white church filled with paper flags, where Jesus and local spirits lived side by side.

Chamula was never about "ethnic product."
It was about keeping traditions alive by continuing them properly.

Handspun yarn.
Handwoven cloth.
Handstitched huaraches.

Not romanticized. Just respected.
Chamula exists not for preservation, but for continuation.

The last to join was Epperson Mountaineering.

It began with Mark Epperson in Montana. For ten years, Yuki sold his bags in Japan.
When Mark said he was retiring, Yuki asked, “Then will you let me carry it on?”

He did.

Yuki took the brand into Meg Company, holding on to what Mark taught him: honest tools.

He added his own ideas.
Inspired by climbing gear’s daisy chain system, he used military-spec tubular webbing—soft on the skin, tough enough for rescue lines.

He kept the integrity. But added color. Shape. Personality.
Because a tool should also feel good to hold.

To Yuki, it was a relay—one that should be run with care.

But the brands were never the point.
They were the result of something larger:

Make things that matter. Avoid noise. Trust your materials. Make what you need.

Yuki never became a celebrity designer. He didn’t try. He never needed to.

And people felt that.
Designers, musicians, architects, craftspeople—those who followed not hype, but philosophy—quietly gathered and supported him.

Today, Meg Company still moves with the same stubborn integrity it started with.
Everything is small batch. Everything is intentional.
Yuki still visits the workshops, talks to the makers, adjusts patterns if he must.

To him, it’s not work.
Designing, making, inspecting—even meeting customers—it’s all part of the best time in his life.

And he’s not alone.
He has a team who believes in him. Suppliers and factories who give their best. Customers who wait with excitement.
He believes good things come from happy hands.

And every day, he thinks:
How lucky am I?

Why make something?
How should it be made?

For Yuki, fashion was never the goal.
The goal was always the why—and the how.

Meg Company is just the name the world gave that belief.
A name quietly sewn into clothes, shoes, and bags that carry the weight of cultures, eras, and hands.
Not to preserve the past—but to give it new breath.