Tokyo Fashion Week Fall 2022 Recap
Design by Grace Han
Fashion week traveled continents to the beautifully electrifying and culturally rich metropolis that is Tokyo. After the surge of COVID seeing past shows and presentations canceled, this year, Tokyo was back exhibiting a whimsical blur of bold palettes, garments embossed with digitality, and silhouettes of sculptural genius. Yet although there was a good turnout this year, organisers could have wished for more of an audience, as Imajo stated when talking about the event: “We have wonderful designers that are coming up and international designers are doing shows, but we wish that we could have had more guests”. But this is no defeat. The travel restrictions created by the pandemic allowed for intimacy and solidarity to grow between designers which enabled the camera lens to focus on Japan’s own homegrown talent. Emerging designers, like Shun Ishizawa for example, was given the chance to shine. Ishizawa stated that the varied platform at the event allowed him to "share [his] brand and worldview with more people”.
So, here are our top picks from Tokyo’s wealth of vivacious designers with an emphasis on the deconstructed, the statuesque, the expressive, and the fluid. Check out our highlights from the collection below and click the link to add a piece of Tokyo innovation to your wardrobe.
YOKE
YOKE launched in AW2018 and boosted an overarching concept of connection, how “things connect people, people connect people, and people connect things”.
The very building blocks of fashion evolve around people. In each stage of the creation process, dozens of people are involved in fashioning just one garment, each individual is responsible for sourcing unique and dynamic raw materials from fabrics to threads to fastenings, to the cutting, stitching, and finishing of the piece. YOKE’s fashion philosophy is conscious of this and aims to stage the garments made to convey that labour process and the people within it. YOKE’s collection reflects the many hands that pieced it together, and in this, the brand hopes to connect as many people to the collection that binds them.
The collection too is all about variety, so the items created by YOKE are very particular in the fabrics and patterns used to that they can be worn by any and every person unisex people whilst adding a touch of sophistication and “contemporary essence to standard items”.
/9M
Designer Riki Yoshida established his brand /9M in 2018 and officially launched it in A/W 2019. Yoshida’s collection is a highly conceptual one configured around an “abnormal luxury uniform” with an emphasis on functionality, production, and self-identification all garnered from regimented and opulent looks with a twist. All his patterns are inspired by travel and art, all of which possess ideologies that are personal in taste and in-depth which heightens that notion of self-expression sewn into the very garments he creates.
Adding a layer of the homegrown into his concept, Yoshida’s goods are produced by hand printing textiles in Kyoto which both adds another layer of what production means to construct fashion whilst also putting Japanese culture on the map.
HOUGA
Moe Ishida graduated from Keoi University in 2011 and alongside her studies in Art History, she studied fashion design at ESMOD JAPON in Tokyo. In 2019 she launched HOUGA. Fairly conservative in style, Idshida’s brand certainly leans into the historical art aesthetic of her education with her sculptural designs harkening back to earlier fashion epochs. The Japanese tradition also features heavily in her work with silhouettes and patterns reminiscent of origami folds.
But there always remains an element of the individual, the individual that is her. Ishida explores how her own personality and her own self are conceived in the material. She writes of this collection it is the “‘Unbirthday Party Dress’, 364days a year I sprout. Dresses that release my true self”. She celebrates the beauty of the self and the growth of the individual.
Maison Shun Ishizawa
Ishizawa is certainly a force to be reckoned with. As a student at Hokkaido Bunka Fashion College, he won many prizes in several competitions such as YKK FASTENING AWARD and the Soen Award. After graduating in 2021, he established his brand.
The concept behind Ishizawa’s designs is “the pursuit of sophisticated martial arts”. The looks Ishizawa creates are all pointed at discovering the beauty and the sophistication veiled beneath the brash and rugged masculinity of the sport. His garments “sublimate[s that] ruggedness [into an art] that fascinates people.”
NON TOKYO
Born in 1983, Ayano Ichige Launched banalchicbizarre in 2002 whilst studying at Bunka Women's University with Shun Nakagawa. Ichige retired from the brand in 2012 when she went to have a baby and established NON TOKYO in 2013 launching in 2014 with the Spring-Summer collection.
NON TOKYO’s philosophy is all about the crossover, that “the sense of discomfort in contrasting is embodied and expressed in clothes”. NON TOKYO aims to redefine this concept and make contrasts and juxtapositions within fashion a thing of art and spectacle. Playing with colour, materials, and structure, Ichige creates powerful and dynamic looks with intent, purpose, and energy at the heart of her design.
View our picks below.
YOKE
2022 A/W Collection
YOKE is pairing industrial and chic, professional and casual that makes this iconic winter look stylish anywhere.
9/M
2022 A/W Collection
Easily coordinate your styles for the most elegant and pristine looks. Keep it simple and understated when pattern matching with a popping pattern on top and on your back with neutral base colours.
HOUGA
2022 A/W Collection
Taking inspiration from the timeless elegance that is ballet. Epitomise femininity in soft hues of pink and bountiful bows and frills in this gorgeous tulle number.
Maison Shun Ishizawa
2022 A/W Collection
Grunge, garage fashion is back but with beauty at its core. Disheveled and deconstructed looks underpinned by double denim certainly make a statement but make your eyes pop as the accessory in these orange-tinted lenses.
NON TOKYO
2022 A/W Collection
The perfect use of sherpa gives this hoodie the weight it needs without being too overwhelming. Pair it with the sweats below and you’re in the ultimate cozy territory.
TOMO KOIZUMI
2022 A/W Collection
High art silhouettes in bold new palettes and combinations. Self-expression defines Koizumi’s designs, he states: "I think having your own signature style is more important than chasing trends," he said, of young designers. "You should try to make trends."
KIDILL
2022 A/W Collection
Blending natural purity and bringing out its beautiful chaos. KIDILL creates free spirits by blending old patterns with new dynamics - his “clothing is produced for the rebels with a modern spirit”.
UCF
2022 A/W Collection
A collection exploring raw materials that are full of craftsmanship evoking the design process. Best shades to show this, black and white, welcome than the original and pure “Black & White Universe”.
SHINYAKOZUKA
2022 A/W Collection
This look is designed to explore those “blurred lines” between style and personality. The intent of this look is vagueness and the understated glam of the everyday.
IRENISA
2022 A/W Collection
Layer your looks for a relaxed and effortless approach to sheer elegance. Muted tones with a bold base layer are a perfect way to approach this methodology to your fashion.
Seivson
2022 A/W Collection
Bring edgy, grunge-based fashion into the 21st Century with this gloriously garish azure blue. This look combines both street fashion and high-art style symbolising both balance and imbalance. This look shows “in-deliberately an irreplaceable modern style, [that defines] the birth of "Seivson".
PEIEN
2022 A/W Collection
“PEIEN would like to make clothes that won't wear away with time”. This look conveys an image dedicated to preserving the long-lasting beauty of fashion but also of the woman and the body who wears it. The minimalist silhouette created by PEIEN here does just that - demonstrating the glamour in the natural.
tanakadaisuke
2022 A/W Collection
“May you meet the unseen self in you with clothes that look like magic”. This look is based on designer Tanaka’s area of expertise, embroidery. This magically sublime gown exudes the majesty of Tanaka and a touch of whimsy.
Edited by Kieryn Alexander