I hit Kinori over FaceTime after the launch to see how it went. His answer: “Crazy. And I’m saying that with a great deal of hubris right before my city gets shut down.” His Spring/Summer collections are smaller and less expensive, and guys buy less those seasons, but when it all shakes out, COVID-be-damned, this may still be his best first week since he started. It usually is. Kinori wouldn’t reveal too much, but many sizes now appear as “(sold out)” on his site.

Courtesy of Evan Kinori

Kinori’s slow and peculiar method of brand building—cutting patterns and sewing samples himself, inspecting every stitch and button the factory sews—has earned him a highly loyal customer base around the world. A high percentage of those customers return season after season, release after release. Most of Kinori’s collection is made up of the same recurring patterns; his biggest fans return to buy their favorites in different fabrics again and again. And now, after five years, that loyal customer base isn’t so small anymore. “I try not to have expectations,” he says. “It’s just word of mouth. Every season more people come.”

Still, I wondered, this week went well, but the next round of production will have to begin soon. This situation must raise some big questions for small businesses like Kinori’s that don’t have any financial safety nets and function as the sole livelihood of their owners, as well as existential questions about the nature of making and selling goods in the first place.

“There’s nothing I can do,” Kinori told me. “If the brand explodes, then, wow, that was insane. The whole trip. It’s all been magical. I have nothing to be upset about. I’m more concerned about my family and not being able to go on a date for three weeks than my business. My design ethos is much more geared towards people not buying shit all the time.”

Courtesy of Evan Kinori Courtesy of Evan Kinori

Of course, this is all happening in America’s first week of life under corona. And Kinori did take a hit by having to cancel all studio visits—opportunities for local customers to come into the studio to try stuff on and shop that often turn into big sales. But even those in distress are finding the right moment amidst the mayhem to log on and replenish their EK supply, Kinori says: “People are like, ‘I’m fleeing New York, can you ship to my Georgia address?’”

When we spoke he was in the process of replying to the mounting queue of emails he’d been ignoring for two days—like that one about fleeing to Georgia, but also stuff like, “Is this olive really olive?” Simultaneously he was packing up orders that he’d be hand-delivering around the city by bicycle (leaving them at the door, to be safe).

Courtesy of Evan Kinori

We ended our conversation on a cautiously optimistic note: “Will this force us to reevaluate our priorities?” Kinori wondered. That’s a sentiment that had been growing increasingly popular in fashion circles as the concepts of sustainability and ethical consumption gained momentum. That was before COVID-19. Whether or not consumers will reprogram for the future remains to be seen. But perhaps now is as good a time as any—if it’s within your means and you can support a business that you hope will still be around when we reach the other side of this thing—to buy something nice for yourself.

“You still want beauty,” Kinori says. “Even if you're staying indoors. It’s still a way to bring joy.”