Hulk Mesh Core started in the summer of 2019 as a very small print run. 300 copies, staple-bound, sold at a surf shop in Kamakura and a concept store in Daikanyama. Yuki Tanaka had spent the previous four years as a fashion editor at a Tokyo lifestyle title, covering everything from outerwear to tableware, and had grown tired of swimwear being treated as a footnote to the main fashion calendar. A two-week trip to Okinawa that spring, where she photographed local women in beautifully constructed local-brand swimwear that no major magazine had ever covered, convinced her that the subject deserved its own dedicated space.
Our products 02 · The workshop
The first issue sold out in eleven days. The second issue, published in spring 2020, doubled the print run and added a proper spine. By issue five, Hulk Mesh Core had a small but loyal readership across Japan and a growing number of digital subscribers in Europe and Southeast Asia. The editorial approach stayed the same throughout: treat swimwear as a serious fashion category, explain the construction and the craft, and shoot on real coastlines rather than in studios. The Kerama Islands shoot in issue seven remains the one Yuki is most proud of. Three days, one photographer, and a borrowed fishing boat.
Our products 03 · Open ground
Today the magazine publishes four times a year, with a print run of 2,800 copies and a digital readership that has grown steadily since 2021. The editorial team is small: Yuki handles direction and most of the writing, with contributions from a rotating group of photographers, stylists, and writers based in Japan and abroad. The office is a single room in Shimokitazawa, Tokyo, with a wall of back issues and a very good kettle. The work is specific, unhurried, and genuinely interested in its subject.
Founder · Yuki Tanaka
Founder
Yuki Tanaka founded Hulk Mesh Core in 2019 after four years as a fashion editor at a Tokyo lifestyle magazine. Before that she studied textile design at Musashino Art University, which is where her interest in fabric construction began. The Okinawa trip in spring 2019 that prompted the magazine's first issue was originally planned as a holiday. She reads every submission herself, edits most of the long-form pieces, and still writes the Trend Cartography section in each issue. She keeps a small collection of vintage Japanese resort-wear catalogues from the 1970s and 1980s, which occasionally surface in the Archive Corner.