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Fashion models, influencers, lovers: Japanese-Korean duo on success and same-sex relationships
- Taiki Takahashi and Noah Lee say their love of fashion lies in their upbringing as they both grew up with mums who love the industry
- The Instagram stars say it hurts when the public eye attacks their private life, but add that the way society looks at gay couples is improving
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They strut their stuff during fashion week, are DJs and are always willing to strike a pose in the latest eye-catching trends for Japan’s oshare snappu street photographers, but you don’t have to scratch the surface too hard to discover that Taiki Takahashi and Noah Lee are far more down-to-earth than their public personae might suggest.
In many ways, the duo are almost humble about their rise to influencer fame, honest about their ambitions to help others and fiercely protective of their relationship.
Given that they come from countries that still have a tendency to look askance at same-sex relationships, perhaps that honesty about their love for one another is one of their biggest achievements to date.
Back in Japan after attending the recent men’s shows in Milan in Italy and Paris in France, Takahashi and Lee say they still cannot quite grasp their “arrival” on the fashion scene.
“I don’t exactly remember when I first got into fashion, but my mum was a huge fan,” 32-year-old Takahashi, who is from Sapporo in northern Japan and graduated from the law faculty of Tokyo’s Senshu University, tells the Post. “Most importantly, I loved watching runway shows,” he adds, identifying Daisuke Ueda as the “legendary” model that he looked up to when he was starting out.
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