Once hailed for its radical reinventions, Japanese fashion is entering a moment of quiet transition. As its avant-garde icons pass the torch, a younger generation redefines how creativity from Japan circulates. Ashley Ogawa Clarke traces some of the schools, networks, and sensibilities making waves in this new era of design.
Japanese fashion, like much of its culture, is marked by paradox. The country has produced some of the greatest and most transformative fashion designers of all time, and yet the contemporary Japanese fashion œuvre – at least as it is understood by the rest of the world – remains relatively limited in scope. The inner workings of the industry in Japan, though unique and in many cases self-sufficient, have an insularity that renders it somewhat opaque to outsiders. The same few names dominate (and have done for decades), and there is little clarity on where things are going next.
To understand what makes the fashion that comes out of Japan interesting, it helps to look at it in relation and contrast to the West. Western clothing became the norm in Japan after the end of the second world war, as the country, recovering from historic defeat and an American occupation, moved forward. The kimono, whose use had been on a downward trajectory since the Meiji era (1868–1912) – when the Japanese sought to emulate Western dress, and later, actors in Hollywood – eventually fell out of favour after the war, and remains today as a ceremonial garment for special occasions. Dressmaking, meanwhile, also became a viable way for women and war widows to earn a living.1 But without the legacy of couturiers to build on (Japan has no Dior, Chanel, Balenciaga et al., whose musical chairs of creative directors are hungrily watched by netizens, and who are still seen as the true leaders in the global fashion space), Japan's designers had some catching up to do.
DUO OF REBELS
As anyone with even a passing interest in fashion now knows, they succeeded. Japanese designers have become some of the biggest names in international fashion, and the Paris Fashion Week schedule – still the core crucible of the industry – is consistently populated by Japanese names. But, much as it feels to be a foreigner in Japan, there is always the sense of a visiting outsider when Japan's designers bring their clothes to the West. Even the word for clothing in Japanese, yōfuku, translates to 'Western clothes'.
The short history of contemporary Japanese fashion (i.e. when Japanese designers first started making yōfuku) is straightforward to recap. Japan's first wave of international designers managed to 'go global' in the latter half of the 20th century. Hanae Mori became the first Japanese designer to show in New York in 1965. In the years following, Kenzo Takada and Kansai Yamamoto took their clothing to Paris and London respectively, closely tailed by Issey Miyake, who showed his collections in New York and then Paris. Before then, the idea of 'Japanese fashion', at least in the mindset of the average foreigner, meant little more than a kimono.
The turning point happened in 1981, when Rei Kawakubo for her brand Comme des Garçons, and Yohji Yamamoto for his eponymous label, showed their clothing for the first time in Paris. A stark departure from the optimistic rainbows of clothing that Kenzo Takada had wooed the West with, this violently new duo of rebels sent dark deconstructed boro rags down the runway. The Western fashion press, who were used to runway presentations that aimed at prettiness rather than subversion, caught a severe case of the vapours. Some problematically dubbed it 'Hiroshima's revenge'.2 Decades later, these shows have become recognised as a seminal moment that irreversibly shifted our collective perception of what clothing could be, and forged an anti-fashion torch that would later be carried by a new generation of designers including Martin Margiela. As the curator Richard Martin wrote: 'It is impossible to describe and analyse late twentieth-century fashion in Europe and America without taking account of the substantive contribution of Japanese designers.'3
In the years since, Japanese fashion has become shorthand for cerebral clothing, adopted by creative types and freethinkers. But the profundity of Kawakubo and Yamamoto's conceptual garments, and the intensity of the response that they received for them, have left long shadows. Both designers are treated with the reverence of deities – or at least the founders of an über-fashionable religion where underlings don their designs like liturgical garments. Both are now in their 80s and still working and designing; we can assume they will do so until they are no longer able.
In the Western mindset, the territory for Japanese high fashion has been colonised by the extraordinary, fashion-defying shapes with which Kawakubo has populated her runways. But there is a sharp commercial aspect to the work. Her Dover Street Market empire, which operates department stores in London, New York, Ginza, Los Angeles, Beijing, and most recently Paris, stocks hundreds of brands from around the world, and has become a mecca for fashion fans who appreciate thoughtful clothes that will set them apart from the masses. And the brand's many diffusion lines, most notably the hype-worthy heart-logo PLAY, which appears on striped T-shirts and simple sneakers, has helped the brand through the many peaks and troughs of the market.
As well as an unlikely force in retail, the Comme des Garçons label also serves as a fertile training ground, from which a cottage industry of designers has sprouted: Junya Watanabe (Junya Watanabe), Kei Ninomiya (Noir by Kei Ninomiya), and the lesser-known Tao Kurihara (Tao) all operate under the Comme des Garçons umbrella, and each have risen the ranks to their current positions from within the business. Other Comme alumni have struck out on their own, with varying degrees of success (Fumito Ganryu is so far the most prominent). Curiously, though these designers have their own visual language, they remain unmistakably 'Comme' in sensibility, whether because of the silhouettes or fabrics they gravitate towards, or even through an intangible vibe. Like branches of a religion, these designers may deviate from and build upon the main tenets of the brand, but the source material remains the same.
This also brings to light the potency of Kawakubo's design language. Indeed, it is one of the most wondered-about questions in fashion what will happen to the Comme empire when its laconic matriarch finally steps down. Word on the street is that Kawakubo wants her label to die with her, but exactly what kind of handover will take place is unclear. All that power and influence, however, will have to go somewhere.
The combined success of Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto, and Issey Miyake, stretched out over the past four decades, has had a halo effect on contemporary Japanese fashion while also becoming the albatross around its neck. How could this sheer tirelessness and enormity of influence not stymie the global emergence of subsequent star Japanese designers, especially when two of its greatest exports remain incumbent in their positions? For the many who have come in their wake since, the act has been tough to follow.
THE SHIFT
A slow shift of power from the big names is already underway behind the scenes. As well as the aforementioned names that have graduated from within the Comme stable, the industry is filled with other, relatively unknown designers who have trained at Japan’s biggest houses. The late Issey Miyake passed on creative control of his brand to the 41-year-old Satoshi Kondo, who is so far leading the brand with tenacity and verve. Tens of other designers who have worked at the household names have gone on to start their own brands, too. It is unclear as yet which of them will manage to grow their own labels in that capacity that their predecessors have, but we can assume that a handful of them will eventually rise to relevance.
The Paris schedule is already dominated by names that, though they are not yet as big as others, are still revered by the fashion press. Sacai by Chitose Abe and Undercover by Jun Takahashi are the two biggest names that have broken through since, along with Nigo, the streetwear designer and creator of A Bathing Ape (BAPE) who was hired to head up KENZO in 2021. Further down the ladder is Mame Kurogouchi, a womenswear designer who makes craft-heavy clothing, and ANREALAGE by Kunihiko Morinaga, who puts on astounding runway presentations that incorporate pioneering technology such as air-conditioned jackets and robotic dresses that seem to move on their own. Both brands are visually interesting, but it is questionable whether they are commercially viable, especially outside of Japan.
Interestingly, the next wave of Japanese fashion appears to be more sales-focused: the most recent breakthroughs are CFCL and Auralee, both of whom have built formidable commercial businesses over the last few years and now show in Paris. Their minimal, textile-focused clothing is already shaping the current era of Japanese fashion.
STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES
Back in Japan, the biggest platform for designers to show their work is Tokyo Fashion Week, which in its current official capacity under the Japan Fashion Week Organisation (JFWO) has been going for twenty years. A domestic showcase that has largely remained insular over these two decades, only a handful of foreign press and buyers attend each season – though this is gradually changing as organisers look to grow the week’s appeal.4 If Japan’s designers wish to grow more quickly and fulfil their potential, however, they must look abroad.
In this regard, Japanese designers are plagued by disadvantages. In recent years, the weak yen has made it difficult for Japanese designers to make headway in Western markets, with the cost of travel, showrooms, and runway presentations an unrealistic expense for emerging designers. When Japanese designers do begin selling abroad, they usually do so in Hong Kong or Seoul. Rare is the Tokyo brand that is able to land an account in New York; rarer still is one that has buyers in Paris. Sizing plays into this too: Japanese sizes are generally smaller in order to work for the domestic market, and many designers have less experience with dressing the diversity of bodies that are commonplace in the West.
Perhaps the most frustrating and chronic problem, however, is the language barrier. The lack of English fluency among Japan’s fashion designers has no doubt worked against them, and presents significant issues that can obfuscate world-building and slow down logistics. There has also never been a Japanese designer heading up a European fashion house (not counting KENZO, which is now owned by LVMH).
Yet this distance in communication also serves to deepen the curiosity that surrounds Japanese fashion designers, in a way that has sustained since they first came onto the international scene. ‘Probably it is the comprehension gap that makes Yohji Yamamoto so philosophical,’ wrote Nicholas Coleridge when he first met the then-45-year-old designer in Tokyo. Little has changed since – a large majority of designers in Japan still do not speak enough English to sufficiently communicate the depth of their work to an international audience, and must rely on translators, expensive international PR and, increasingly, artificial intelligence, to help them get their point across.
There are clearer-cut advantages that Japanese designers enjoy. High among them is the wealth of factories that are known for their artisanship and superior production quality that Japanese designers have on their doorstep, the proximity of which makes domestic manufacturing exponentially easier and more affordable than it is in the nations of other major fashion hubs (where much is increasingly outsourced to cheaper nations, even among leading luxury brands). With some exceptions, this also means Japanese designers do not have to think as hard about sustainability; instead it is something that is built organically into many of their brands because of how locally they produce and sell. Many source deadstock fabrics from Japanese factories that they adapt into new clothing.
Also on their side is the country’s remarkable retail landscape, which is filled with endless experimental boutiques, glossy department stores and expertly curated select shops, and is vibrant enough to make shopping in New York, Paris and London look barren. Here, clothing racks at stores even far outside of Tokyo are rich with exciting fashion that to a fashion-conscious shopper feels like a treasure trove. This is a blessing for Japan’s homegrown designers, who can expect domestic buyers to pick up – with increasing frequency due to the weak yen (which frees up their budgets from increasingly overpriced Western brands) – their most outlandish creations. Japanese fashion shoppers, known for their discernment, adventurousness, and fastidious knowledge, are still the driving forces behind many of the country's (and the world’s) most obscure labels. If a fashion brand is doing something truly interesting, you can bet that it will have stockists in Japan before anywhere else.
THE WOMENSWEAR & MENSWEAR SPLIT
Styling in Japan is defined by layering and ornamentation that can seem excessive to those unaccustomed. Frills and lace are common for women, and it is not unusual to see vest tops worn over dresses or skirts over trousers. While this can make Japanese fashion appear outré (see the street style that was documented in the 1990s in magazines such as FRUiTS) fashion in Japan remains relatively conservative when it comes to more conventional notions of sexuality.
Indeed, Japanese womenswear is worlds apart from the tits-and-teeth Kardashian version of femininity that has blossomed in the 21st Century from Los Angeles to Essex. Blouses or dresses that show off cleavage are vanishingly rare to see publicly in Japan, and the silhouette in the street is A-line and sack-like rather than body-conscious.
A new wave of upcoming designers is attempting to play with genre and gender, however. Fetico, a brand by Emi Funayama incorporates lingerie-like details into its gothic womenswear (the brand takes its name from a play on ‘fetish girl’, which was Funayama’s nickname at fashion school). Harunobu Murata, a designer who worked at Jil Sander in Milan before returning to Japan to launch his own label, also does well with his own high-minded elegant womenswear, popular among his social circle of Japanese actresses. Both brands are doing well in Japan and are thus ready to expand their business. Funayama is currently trying to sell abroad in Western markets, but she has an uphill battle to convince European or American department stores that her vision of sex can sell as well in their markets as it does in her own. A sternum-flashing blouse might seem revolutionary in Osaka or Sapporo; in London it’s just another day at the office.
Men’s clothing is another story. While the growth of Japan’s womenswear has been hobbled by past glory, its menswear has thrived. Menswear in the cultural sense – that is, as a global community – rallies around Japanese designers more than any other. Both because of artisanship (see the famously superior denim production in Kojima),5 and hype (see the Ura-Harajuku scene in the 1990s that birthed – or was birthed by – designers like Nigo and Hiroshi Fujiwara),6 Japanese menswear is filled with much to obsess over. The streetwear boom in the 2010s also owed much to Japan, and coincided with the hype cultivated by artists like Takashi Murakami and Yayoi Kusama, whose recognisable aesthetics were quickly vacuumed up by luxury brands into commercial collaborations.
In recent years, however, the relationship between hype and craft have blurred into something more amorphous. The Auralee show during Paris Men’s Fashion Week has become one of the hottest tickets of the week, swarmed by the New York and European media elite, who showed up in droves to see what designer Ryota Iwai will put on the runway next. Iwai, a stringy and kindly man in his 40s, has built a robust business by focusing on quality fabrics in relaxed silhouettes and a charming, light-filled colour palette of buttercreams, pistachio, sky blue and postbox red. Whether or not these very minimal clothes need a runway show to communicate their appeal seems to be beside the point. Wearing or knowing about them signals that you are part of a community that appreciates good fashion.
Around Auralee, which was founded in 2015 – and the not dissimilar but slightly moodier Comoli, founded a year earlier – has emerged a cottage industry of similarly tasteful menswear brands. A. Presse, Yoke, Irenisa, Cottle and Stein (ssstein) are just five examples that focus on fabrication, and which are increasingly building a consumer base outside of Japan whether through runway shows or because of their positioning in agenda-setting boutiques. All of these brands operate in the realm of riaru kurōzu (リアルクローズ, ‘real clothes’), the neat Japanese term for garments that are realistic and not too challenging to wear. And while these real clothes are often expertly made and pleasing to the eye, a canvas jacket or pair of tailored trousers from any of these brands would be tough to distinguish in a line-up.
These brands’ lack of aesthetic directionality is, in the context of their success in the modern menswear sphere, irrelevant. Especially so for their fans abroad, the broad appeal of these clothes, as well as their relaxed silhouettes and quality handfeel, crystallises into something more akin to social currency: an Auralee shirt is not only something well-made that will look pleasant to wear, but is also something that can be dropped casually into conversation. The viral ‘Thing, Japan’ meme – in which two identical objects of attention receive a much better response when they are Japanese – applies to clothing as much as anything. The fashion clout from these quieter brands doesn’t lie in visual impact, but in an if-you-know-you-know sense of cool that, especially in the digital age where information is disseminated globally across the same channels, signals you are part of an in-the-know community. And in the one-upmanship of contemporary menswear, comparing cotton shirts or twill cargo pants is like Patrick Bateman comparing business cards in American Psycho. There is no response to ‘Nice shirt, where’d you get it?’ that will coax a bead of sweat out of your rival’s brow better than ‘Thanks, it’s from Japan.’
WHERE TO NEXT?
When designer Yoshikazu Yamagata returned to Japan after graduating from Central Saint Martins and a spell assisting John Galliano in the mid-2000s, he quickly found that his native country lacked the creative freedom that is encouraged and cultivated in European schools. The big fashion education establishments in Tokyo, Bunka Fashion College and ESMOD, are known for teaching budding designers practical skills on how to make clothing. This is good for getting a job, but facilitates little of the wild experimentation that would-be creative directors benefit from in places like CSM, Antwerp, or Parsons. Thus Yamagata founded Coconogacco, a Tokyo-based school that runs on evenings and weekends to facilitate an environment for designers and creatives (the school is not limited to fashion) to tease out what lies beneath: not so much as what they want to do but what they want to say. Instead of trying to emulate somebody else, students are encouraged to reach within to understand what makes them individual, whether that might be a simple personality quirk, an embarrassing hobby, or even childhood trauma, turning the creation process into a form of catharsis. Each year the school holds an exhibition in Fujiyoshida, a small town in the shadow of Mount Fuji, where students show all manner of their weird and wonderful ideas not aimed at doing business, but at pure creative freedom.
The efficacy of this freedom that Yamagata has encouraged among his students is now coming to light: in the years since its inception, many of the designers behind the Japanese fashion scene’s most notable new brands, such as Soshiotsuki (by Soshi Otsuki), Akikoaoki (by Akiko Aoki), Pillings (by Ryota Murakami), and Keisukeyoshida (by Keisuke Yoshida) have come up through Coconogacco, and through various roots have each made sustainable if small businesses. Though there is little that unites their visual output, each designer has a strong sense of identity (and by extension a ‘brand identity’) that they can at least in part thank Coconogacco for refining. All of these graduates have maintained relationships with the school to varying degrees over the years, with many teaching current students, and in this way, a powerful community has been built. If Japan’s next star designer comes from anywhere, Coconogacco will likely have something to do with it.
As well as schools that nurture emerging talent, other benefactors have also stepped in to help newer brands thrive. Mihara Yasuhiro, a 53-year-old who is known for his shoes that look like melted Converse Chuck Taylors, recently invested in Kamiya and Keisuke Yoshida, two brands by emerging designers in their 30s. The Sazaby League, a company which operates Ron Herman in Japan, recently invested in Pillings. And Mikio Sakabe, a contemporary and collaborator of Coconogacco’s Yamagata, began his own fashion academy, ME School, in 2019, and invests in designers through his Three Treasures initiative, which has a store space in Harajuku. For younger designers, this tangible support from the senpai 7 generation is invaluable; it helps them secure PR, amp up production, and increase visibility.
The aforementioned Pillings is one of the more revolutionary names emerging from Tokyo in recent seasons. Its designer, Ryota Murakami, who was shortlisted for this year’s LVMH Prize alongside the aforementioned winner Otsuki (also one of his peers at Coconogacco), has aspirations to show his off-kilter knitwear in Paris. JFWO, meanwhile, is working to get more Japanese designers in front of press and buyers in Europe by partnering with Pitti Uomo in order to facilitate cross-pollination of its designers at the Italian event, as well as through multiple prizes that allow designers to take their collections to showrooms in Paris.
Another path to visibility is through international prizes. Japanese designers have also been big winners of the LVMH Prize, regarded as the buzziest prize in the industry with the top accolade amounting to 400,000 euros and mentoring from LVMH. In 2019, Doublet’s Masayuki Ino became the first Japanese designer to take the prize for his comedy-inspired collections; he was followed by Setchu’s craft-focused Satoshi Kuwata in 2023. The most recent winner is the aforementioned Soshi Otsuki, who this year won the judges over for his suiting that, curiously, plays on the tension between the adoration Japanese salarymen had for Made in Italy suits in the bubble era in Japan’s Showa period. (Otsuki subverts this adoration for Western fashion with a Made in Japan philosophy, repurposing kimono silks into shirts and tailoring jackets and trousers to resemble judo uniforms.) These prizes come with the expectation of international expansion: Doublet shows on the Paris schedule, and Setchu has begun showing at Pitti Uomo.
After years of stagnation in terms of international clout for new Japanese designers, we are now at a point where many of the names mentioned throughout this essay are evolving from small homegrown labels into something with more global potential. Can this new generation thrive in an increasingly frenetic industry? Their ability to break through the noise – and therefore define the next generation of Japanese fashion on the international stage – will depend on whether or not they can tell their stories through their clothes in a way that charms and captivates. True or full comprehension of what they are trying to say can of course come later. That is, if it needs to come at all – for some, the distinct, delicious self-contained sensibility of Japanese fashion is and will remain an inextricable part of its magnetism. The coolest fashion designer, after all, is the one you haven’t yet heard about.