MOST architects meet their clients through referrals or networking. Mishi Hosono and Adam Weintraub, of Koko Architecture and Design in Manhattan, met one of theirs just before their wedding 12 years ago, when Ms. Hosono was trying to figure out how to put on the dress she planned to wear.

“It was by Comme des Garçons, and we found it on the floor of the Barneys Warehouse Sale,” said Ms. Hosono, 43, who grew up in Tokyo but studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, where she met Mr. Weintraub, also 43, who is from suburban Detroit.

Ms. Hosono had purchased the dress without trying it on, and it proved to be more complicated than it looked. So the couple took it to the Comme des Garçons store in SoHo, where Tomoko Akiyoshi, a visual merchandiser from Japan, guided them through the garment’s Gnostic mysteries.

They soon discovered that they traveled in similar circles: Ms. Akiyoshi’s husband, Kimio (known as Aki), owns a hair salon on Greene Street frequented by architects like Steven Holl and Calvin Tsao, a former colleague of Ms. Hosono’s. Over the next decade the couples became friends, sharing tips on raising American daughters with a sense of Japanese identity. (The Akiyoshis have two teenage daughters who often baby-sit for Ms. Hosono and Mr. Weintraub’s two grade-school girls.)