LEGACY BEYOND ASIA - Why Designers Should Pay Attention to Mix & Match

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Why Designers Should Pay Attention to Mix & Match

#Mix & Match #Daikanyama #TSUTAYA #Swatch Group #OMEGA

07/29/2026

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Sangwoo Cho

Senior Designer at Jabra, Denmark

The boundaries between disciplines are disappearing at an accelerating pace. In the past, things considered “incompatible” were often dismissed. Today, however, people increasingly expect the unexpectedness that emerges when seemingly unrelated fields converge and conventional boundaries are broken. The unfamiliarity itself has become a source of enjoyment and a way for individuals to express tastes that differ from those of others.

In the past, mix and match in fashion rarely went beyond pairing sneakers with a formal suit. Today, it has clearly evolved to another level. The boundaries between fields and categories have become almost chaotic. We are living through the era of New Mix & Match, a trend that creates fresh value and enjoyment by combining heterogeneous elements that may not appear to belong together. This goes beyond simply mixing visual or superficial elements. It brings together industries, technologies, emotions, and values that were previously separate. In other words, it has reached the point of reinterpreting established value paradigms. It is particularly noteworthy that this trend has expanded beyond fashion and crossed into products, spaces, food and beverage, branding, and entertainment, establishing itself as a distinct cultural phenomenon. Throughout this process, the role of the designer is undeniably central.

< Image Source: TSUTAYA – Daikanyama T-Site >

TSUTAYA’s approach at Daikanyama in Tokyo, Japan, is a strong example of context mix and match. People do not visit this place simply to browse books. Within the same bookstore complex, there are cafés, a bicycle shop, a clinic, a vegetable store, and even a music lounge where visitors can enjoy wine. Someone may arrive to buy a book and leave carrying vegetables and strawberry jam in the other hand. By reconfiguring the bookstore as a place that proposes lifestyles and enables the consumption of culture, TSUTAYA created a model that is now widely benchmarked around the world. Its founder, Muneaki Masuda, stated that what customers want is not the physical object of a book, but the lifestyle contained within it. In line with this idea, the bookstore applies mix and match through proposals rather than conventional categories. For example, the travel section presents not only books, but also bags, cameras, accessories, and even a professional travel agency desk. What is especially impressive is the way the bookstore has been matched with the idea of proposing tastes, rather than simply selling books.

< Image Source: Swatch Group >

A collaboration between the high-end watch brand OMEGA and the fast-fashion watch brand Swatch once generated enormous popularity. Although both companies operate within the same industry, they represent opposite ends of the market. Their collaboration attracted considerable attention at the time, and the strategy of mixing and matching straps, sometimes referred to as strap-changing marketing, developed into a culture of its own. It was particularly impressive how the heritage of luxury was reinterpreted through a fun and playful sensibility.

< Image Source: Seoul Coffee 1945, SWOOP Coffee >

Mix and match has expanded beyond products and entered the fields of space, architecture, and services. Examples include modern cafés created by renovating traditional hanok houses, combinations of refined fine-dining recipes with frozen food, pairings of expensive wine with street food, and the contrast of Old & New seen in architectural renovations and extensions. Boundaries are no longer merely blurred. They are beginning to permeate one another.

Beyond Boundaries, Toward Innovation

Of course, there are also many cases in which mix and match is approached indiscriminately as a simple concept. Combining unrelated elements without planning only leads to confusion and disorder. This is why the original purpose of mix and match, along with the storytelling that forms its foundation, must be carefully examined from beginning to end.

In many cases, the formula for innovative mix and match is not 1 + 1 = 2. True innovation lies in intentionally bringing different fields into conflict and producing an entirely different outcome, one that may even be impossible to predict. Through this process, the public is offered diverse opportunities and experiences that were previously unavailable.

Perhaps the deliberate creation of new experiences is a positive movement that can fill an increasingly impersonal modern society with anticipation and imagination.