Jay Lim, founder of Say Touché, talks taste

My personal style signifier is a vintage watch. I have five, each at least 30 years old. My favourite is a ’70s Cartier Tank with an original leather strap (they’re hard to find because the leather falls apart easily). For me to acknowledge the value of a watch, it should work for more than 50 years. A man should always have a good watch, even if it’s not vintage; it shows his personality. 

The place that means a lot to me is Perth, Australia, where I moved when I was seven, and lived for five or six years. The education and lifestyle is so different to Korea. I see myself as having a very culturally mixed personality – in Korea I’ve lived on Jeju, a small island, and also in Seoul, the biggest city. As a kid in Australia, I’d listen to Green Day and Eminem, which would never have been me if I had been in Korea. 

South Korea’s design scene is in its golden era right now. I think it’s because my generation was the first to have the internet as children. Korea is a very strong technological country, but we also have a traditional Asian culture. It all got mixed. This generation is good at using media and machines – new-generation stuff – but our parents were very classic. We’re not traditional Korean kids but we’ve got the same mindset as our parents. The most exciting thing about the design scene is the whole living-lifestyle sector, which only became a thing after Covid. We didn’t have a house-party culture until three or four years ago, but since the pandemic people have started to invite friends over. Say Touché was kind of the first actual lifestyle brand here. Usually if you make rugs you’re a rug brand; if you use leather, you’re a leather brand. We do all the categories. One of our signatures is the Liquified Persian rug – a heart-shaped rug that looks as if it’s melting – but in Korea, we didn’t even have a culture of using rugs until recently because of ondol, a floor-heating system used for centuries. Nowadays, people have started using rugs as a fashionable item.

My favourite Korean designer is Lee Kwang-ho. He makes copper furniture and artworks and he’s done some big projects with Bottega Veneta. I see some Korean heritage in his work as copper was a common material in Korea in the 10th century. I don’t know him personally but we have similar tastes: he has a good vintage car collection and his studio is very beautiful.

And my own designs are inspired by daily life. They could be from TV, friends or even a font that’s written on the menu in some restaurant. My mom had a great taste in antique furniture, so I had the chance to go to markets and garage sales when I was a kid.

The best book I’ve read in the past year was Korean, 사장학개론 by Kim Seung-ho. Translated into English it might be “CEO theory”. I’ve run my company for four or five years, so I try to read a lot of books about how to build a brand. This was the most direct. It was kind of like getting taught by a very scary teacher. I gave it to about 10 friends. 

If you’re five steps ahead, the public will fear the idea

I don’t usually listen to podcasts but I like Theo Von’s. He’s a comedian in the States who does episodes with a Korean-American guy, Bobby Lee. These days there are so many things you shouldn’t talk about because everything can be racist or anti-feminist, but when I listen to them I feel very free – like 20 years ago, when anyone had the right to say anything. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, but I kind of miss those days. 

The last music I downloaded was “either on or off the drugs” by American rapper JPEGMAFIA. The first 10 seconds are amazing. There’s a very jazzy, sexy vocal from an AI cover of a song by the rapper Future, which JPEGMAFIA has sampled. That was kind of fresh to me.

My favourite room in my house is the living room. Living by myself in Seoul, I moved eight times in nine years and this was the first house with a proper living room. Finally I feel like I’m living in a home. I have a lot of plants, and my house is a mixture of vintage pieces and our products – the Moss Rug and Cowhide Clock. I usually start designing in response to my needs at home.

My style icon is Jonah Hill. He has great taste but a comic image. I like his tattoos. 

The best gift I’ve given recently was a vintage Rolex to one of the founding members of my brand. It was an ’80s Datejust – the first watch I bought two years ago. It was like a dream: the poor kids who once couldn’t afford anything now have Rolexes on their wrists. Rolex isn’t my favourite watch brand but it’s the image I wanted to conquer, I guess – it’s something most people align with success. It was a “we made it” moment.  

And the best gift I’ve received is a tattoo machine with my name engraved on it, from a friend, Gara, a tattoo artist. Back then I was a photographer, and I said I wanted to try lots of jobs – painting, DJing, doing tattoos. A few months later he gave me the machine. It’s actually the same one he uses, so it was quite expensive for someone who doesn’t know how to tattoo. I used it on my friend Suhwan Park, also a tattoo artist. He didn’t like it though… 

I have a collection of hats. I buy them every day even if I don’t wear them. I have literally hundreds. 

The best way to spend £20 – about 38,000 South Korean won – is on just a pack of Bohem Cigar Mini cigarettes and a coffee. My favourite combination. 

A way to make me laugh is to laugh in front of me. I will laugh immediately. 

In my fridge you’ll always find a bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc, my favourite wine, and some fruit. Having fruit – watermelon in summer, strawberries in winter – at my house makes me feel like it’s actually a home, because I have memories of my mum forcing me to eat them.  

I recently discovered that I’ve become old. In Korean age [which traditionally deems infants one year old at birth] I became 30, and the 30 thing is kind of a big deal here – well, it used to be. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, because I started working when I was 21 or 22, so I was the youngest kid everywhere for 10 years. But suddenly I’ve started meeting kids who are younger than me. I thought I was 26 forever, then I realised I’m no longer the freshest guy in the group. 

The one thing I couldn’t do without is my rescue dog, Billie. I literally go everywhere with her. I love having a routine with my dog: every morning we go to Namsan Mountain for a walk, then we come into the office. When I go to meetings, Billie is always with me. I can’t imagine life without her. 

The last item of clothing I added to my wardrobe was an A-3 cap from The Real McCoy’s, a Japanese brand that recreates American workwear and military clothes from the second world war to the Vietnam war. They are very classic. This cap is too small for me so I cut the edges to make it fit. 

An object I would never part with is my vintage Honda Cubra bike. I bought it wanting to rebuild it, one of one, just for me, and my friend – the one who I gave the Rolex to – took it and rebuilt the engine and everything. My favourite colour is green – my car is green, everything’s green – and he painted the bike green himself. I’ll keep it for the rest of my life. 

On my Instagram “For You” page you’ll find vintage cars – Jags and also Porsches. I’m trying to buy a first-generation Volkswagen Golf, so that’s the most viewed thing on my Instagram right now. Since I made money, I want to buy the things I dreamt of when I was a kid. 

The grooming staple I’m never without is Tom Ford Ombré Leather and Maison Margiela Jazz Club – the only fragrances I’ve used for 10 years. I don’t like changing my scent. Maison Margiela Replica Jazz Club, £125 for 100ml. Tom Ford Ombré Leather, £108 for 50ml

I don’t have grooming gurus. I didn’t even put lotion on my face until two years ago. Maybe a tip would be not to do anything. 

In another life, I would have been an actor – a small dream I wish I could try but I have so many tattoos, I could never do it in Korea. It’s illegal to give tattoos here (you need a doctor’s licence). I think it’s because of the bad perception of tattoos in Japan. I have a boomerang on my shoulder and a koala on my chest. I also have Piero Manzoni’s sculpture Artist’s Shit – he put his shit in a can – on my thigh. For me, Artist’s Shit was the conclusion of Duchamp’s Readymade movement, when artists started to add value to an existing object; before the movement, everything was about creating something new. It taught me not to care much about others’ opinions. If you’re so sure you can sell your own shit, how can someone say if it’s right or wrong?

The best ideas come when you give up and you’re lying on the couch looking through old photos. It’s inspiring when a random scene from life comes to your mind, and even though it’s not related to the thing you need the inspiration for, it always links up. Say I’m trying to make a concept for a table, but the design inspiration comes from my 13th birthday in Australia.

I believe in life after death because, if I didn’t, there wouldn’t be any point in believing in the family members who have passed away: for example, my father. 

The one artist whose work I would collect if I could is Anish Kapoor. I like his stainless-steel wall-hanging objects, usually untitled. For my brand’s designs, we’re always trying to put in lots of detail and make them maximalist, but when I saw his work, I was like: maybe you don’t need detail to make a great impression. 

My favourite building is the Tadao Ando-designed Museum SAN in Korea. It’s an hour or two away from Seoul, so even just going there is a healing process. It’s the only place you can see works by James Turrell in Korea, and they have made a whole centre dedicated to him next to the museum. I love the fact that I’m in the middle of James Turrell’s head.  

The best advice I ever received was from the artist Jeon Joo-hong, CEO of Labdoku and tableware brand Hériter, and one of my mentors, who told me that if you’re five steps ahead, the public will fear the idea; the best way to convince them is to only be one or two steps ahead. I was always trying to bring out the newest thing that nobody had ever seen. After that, my whole strategy changed.