A conversation about Tokyo with Tyler Brûlé, editorial director & chairman of Monocle

A true media mogul, Tyler Brûlé founded Wallpaper magazine in the mid-'90s and went on to launch the global affairs and lifestyle magazine/media brand Monocle in 2007. With six international offices - plus a number of stores and cafés - one of the publication's bases is in Tokyo.

Self-described as an "old hat" in Japan, Brûlé has visited the country over 100 times, and, due to the lack of travel allowed during the pandemic, absence has made the heart grow even fonder. Here, the journalist and entrepreneur opens up about his unique insights into the media landscape, his absolute favorite spots in the city, and what advice he would give to someone looking to do business locally.

First and foremost, you have a global city that is still so homogenous. On one side, it is a very international city, and of course welcomes people from everywhere and has a level of diversity, but at the core, it is Japanese. And that's what continues to make it a unique place. Traditions can endure; whether it is those that are rooted in the family or those rooted in business, you don't have a dilution of values. And, to me, that is an incredibly powerful thing to hold on to.

There are lots of organizations that try to preserve the architecture, to maintain the craftsmanship and ensure that age-old recipes are protected. On the other side, you have also got the collision of globalization, which dictates that everything should strive to be the same - that's a very tricky balance, and that's one of the things that continues to make Japan such a place of fascination. Everything functions better than it does elsewhere, and yet it is also still set in its ways and navigates daily life on its own terms. In a globalized world, that's a very difficult act to pull off.

Japan is very outward-looking; you could say that the Japanese continue to borrow and be inspired by abroad, but they do it on their own terms, and along the way, they reinterpret, they refine, they perfect, and they take things to a completely different level. With the media scene, primarily magazines, there is something about the way that Japanese publishing houses focus on the quality of print, the complexity of page layout, and the depths of information that we simply do not see anywhere outside of Japan, and that's always a place of wonder for me - to just spend an evening at a Japanese newsstand or in a Japanese bookstore, reading and purchasing so many different Japanese titles, it is super inspiring. They push the limits of publishing in a way that's very rare in other corners of the world.