How Wave Grid Lab Pulse started
Refined swimwear and lingerie, made for you.
Aiko Murakami spent seven years as a pattern cutter at a mid-market swimwear manufacturer in Osaka before she moved to Tokyo in 2017. The work was fast and the volumes were high, and she grew tired of watching good fabric get wasted on cuts that did not account for how a real body moves in water. She started keeping a notebook of corrections she would have made. By 2018, the notebook had more than 200 entries. In early 2019, she rented a small room in Minami-Aoyama, bought a second-hand industrial sewing machine, and started making samples.
Aiko Murakami trained as a pattern cutter at Osaka Apparel Technical College, graduating in 2010. She spent the following seven years at a mid-volume swimwear manufacturer in Osaka, where she cut patterns for export lines sold across Southeast Asia. In 2017 she relocated to Tokyo and spent two years freelancing for several small ready-to-wear labels before founding Wave Grid Lab Pulse in 2019. She travels to Lyon once a year to select lace from Maison Deschamps in person, and visits the Nishijin Textile Studio in Kyoto each spring. Outside the atelier, she swims open water in Tokyo Bay on Sunday mornings when the weather allows.