Words by Cory Ohlendorf | Photography by Bandana/Courtesy

It’s an overcast, rain-soaked spring afternoon in the Japanese countryside. As we approach a walled complex, a slick looking gentleman opens the gate and gestures for us to step into the courtyard. Rows of elegant bonsai are neatly standing at attention, positioned in a perfect grid on concrete pedestals that match the modern headquarters. The air is heavy with petrichor—that distinct, slightly sweet scent released when it rains—a mix of wet earth, stone and plant oils. Moments after greeting us, Teppei Kojima picks up a pair of shears and begins studying a small, gnarled evergreen that's older than most nations.

He’s quiet for a moment. With one hand raised in front of his face, half-covering his field of vision, he starts snipping and tailoring the tree. He doesn’t explain himself immediately. He doesn’t need to. The moves are instinctive, almost choreographic, and tell you everything about the man: he’s deliberate, confident and deeply attuned to his craft. He moves fast and then shows me the proper way to observe and appreciate the tree. But more on that later.

Kojima is the founder of Tradman's Bonsai, the Tokyo-based brand on a mission to pull one of Japan’s most ancient art forms out of the hands of a graying niche and into the broader cultural conversation. He’s also, it should be said, one of the most stylish people you’ll ever meet. His arms are sleeved in tattoos, a vintage Cartier watch on his wrist. His outfit is effortlessly considered, layered and textured yet monochromatic. He carries himself with the easy authority of someone who has spent a career trusting his gut—which, as it turns out, is exactly what he’s done.

Kojima came up in the world of fashion. He spent his early career as a buyer, traveling internationally and developing the kind of finely calibrated taste that’s hard to teach. It was during those buying trips abroad that something unexpected happened: he kept seeing bonsai. Japanese bonsai, displayed and admired overseas, but something wasn’t quite right. “I felt that those bonsai overseas were a bit different from the bonsai I knew,” he says. “It made me want to share what true bonsai really is.”

In 2015, Kojima founded Tradman’s Bonsai with a mission that sounds simple on paper but is genuinely radical in execution: to share the traditional Japanese art of bonsai with the world, not by watering it down, but by reframing it entirely. Where bonsai had long been the province of older collectors—practiced in private, revered in silence—Kojima saw something else: an art form with the raw cultural power to resonate with younger generations, if only it was communicated in the right way. And for Tradman’s, that means high-design and beauty contrasted with a modern, minimalist edge and a badass crew outfitted in streetwear-style uniforms. That visual contradiction is the whole point.

To fully get it, you have to understand where Kojima came from. Growing up, his formative influences weren’t zen gardens and meticulous raked gravel, they were music, skateboarding and tattoos. “At the root of everything was street culture,” he says, thinking back. Deeply influenced by American culture, he was the kind of kid who understood the language of Vans sneakers and punk rock. That sensibility didn’t go away when he discovered bonsai. It actually became the lens through which he would reimagine it.

And it all started, fittingly, with a pair of secondhand jeans. When Kojima was young, he was separated from his parents and spent time in a children’s home. It was there where he noticed the man in charge, usually a strict principal type guy, kept bonsai trees, tending them with quiet focus. It was his first real encounter with the art—not as a cultural artifact, but as a living practice of attention and care.

Kojima was eventually reunited with his family and horticulture took a backseat, at least temporarily. But during this time, his father, who loved vintage clothes, gave him a pair of old Levi’s. The jeans were the 1966 501 cut, straight leg and worn-in beautifully. “That denim shaped my sense of value and authenticity,” he says. The 501 became a kind of personal shorthand for purity, for the feeling of encountering something real for the first time. Years later, when Kojima started pursuing bonsai, he saw a particular tree—a Japanese white pine, known as Goyōmatsu—he knew immediately. “I purchased it, and to this day, whenever I look at it, it brings me back to that same feeling. The purity of my beginning.”

The Goyōmatsu is, in traditional bonsai culture, about as classic as it gets. In Japanese, the word carries connotations of awaiting an important calling, of being entrusted with a duty, which is why the tree has long been associated with dignity, longevity, and good fortune. For Kojima, it’s all of that and also something more personal: his origin story, compressed into a living thing. To me, it’s a perfect metaphor: denim adapts and gets a patina, personalized by the wearer. So do bonsai. They both get more meaningful and beautiful the longer you live with it.

There’s something almost counterintuitive about the urgency Kojima brings to an art defined by patience. He is, in many ways, a man in a hurry—relentlessly collaborative, evangelizing to younger audiences, pushing bonsai into spaces and conversations it has never inhabited before. And yet the trees themselves demand the opposite: decades of attention, passed between hands across generations.

Back at the workshop (its location remains a secret because of the sheer value of all the bonsai stored here), the rain has softened to a mist. Kojima sets down his shears and regards the pine he’s been working on. He covers part of his vision again with one hand, tilting his head slightly. I ask him why he does this. “There’s no true completion in bonsai,” he says. “There’s no single correct answer. When I do this, I’m imagining the tree as a single canvas. I ask myself: if I remove this branch, how does the balance change? How does the negative space shift?”

It is, I realize, the same question a great buyer asks in a showroom, the same question a designer asks at a drawing board. What stays and what goes. What serves the whole and what is merely there or in the way. Teppei Kojima has been asking that question his entire life. Early on, there was skepticism. His ink and his approach. But over time, that resistance has softened as the work has spoken for itself. Spend even a short amount of time in Kojima’s world and one misconception disappears quickly: bonsai isn’t decor. “They’re not decorative objects, they are outdoor trees,” he says. That distinction matters. Because what he’s really offering isn’t a product, it’s a relationship. An invitation to care and appreciate nature and its beauty. That grounding is what gives Tradman’s such credibility. And by placing it in conversation with fashion, with design, with culture at large, Kojima is doing something subtle but significant: he’s removing the barrier to entry without ever diluting the meaning.

According to the Tradman’s team, appreciation isn’t about a quick glance at the canopy. It’s a deliberate, bottom-up process that mirrors how the tree was designed.

The Japanese retailer Beams is known for its eclectic collection of beautiful items curated from all over the country. The brand also has an amazing house brand that offers stylish and well-made staples for really reasonable prices. Case in point: This fresh take on a classic coach’s jacket. Cut with a wider, boxy silhouette and slightly shorter cropped hem, they say “it’s ideal for building layered looks.” It’s made from a lightweight nylon that’s so airy and breathable that it’s almost sheer. But that’s what gives the shirt jacket such an amazing drape on the body. Take your pick between navy or this putty grey color and since it’s available from Beams America, it can be quickly and easily shipped to you.

Hinatabokko (日向ぼっこ) is a Japanese term that describes one of life’s simplest pleasures: sitting in a patch of sunlight and doing absolutely nothing. It’s that warm spot by the window, a quiet bench that catches the afternoon rays or standing in awe in the golden glow of the setting sun. It’s less about sunbathing, more about slowing down—a reminder to take a beat, soak up some light and appreciate a fleeting moment that feels easy, calm and quietly restorative.