Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo for Autumn Winter 2023 season starts on the 13th March, 2023.

It used to be the case that Tokyo Fashion Week was best known for over-the-top costumes, such as you would find at festivals, or for its anarchic hodgepodge of elements. These turned a defiance of tradition to their advantage, basking in the limelight that came from poking heretical holes in the orthodox of Western fashion culture, but were also ultimately treated as little more than novelties. Recent years, however, have seen increasing appearances by brands acclaimed for their sophisticated designs and meticulous craftsmanship. Each season only seems to emphasize this trend even more, with the spring-summer 2025 season offering numerous encounters with highly accomplished collections that constitute what we might call a new kind of “Japanese luxury.” First on the list is KANAKO SAKAI, whose spirited collection explored the theme of “the sophistication of rebellion.” The label deliberately collapsed the principles of refined beauty in an attempt to uncover a new sophisticated aesthetic. The radical styling that mixed opposing elements and distressed fabrics across all the clothes was nonetheless undergirded by a constant elegance. Not to be outdone, HARUNOBUMURATA took inspiration from the work of Constantin Brâncuşi, a pioneering yet solitary figure in twentieth-century sculpture. Replicating the inherently hard texture of sculpture with the soft material that is fabric, the clothes were infused with the quality of haute couture and draped in a decidedly noble aura. Other collections sparkled with luxury that concealed a Japanese savoir-faire: SHINYAKOZUKA focused on a colorful charm in ways that revealed a different pedigree to KANAKO SAKAI and HARUNOBUMURATA; YOHEI OHNO turned to everyday clothing for the first time with an interdisciplinary approach; FETICO attempted a minimal style that nonetheless pursued a fetishistic worldview; TELMA harnessed vibrant colors for its inaugural show; and HATRA utilized AI while paying homage to classic styles. This season yielded an array of encounters with new and promising talent. Of particular note is mukcyen, included in our roundup for the first time and whose remarkable collection belied its status as only the second since the label’s debut. There is so much potential in the uniqueness of its sources of inspiration, the level of skill demonstrated in shaping its themes into designs, the quality of the clothes as products, and, above all, its highly unusual aesthetic rooted in the culture of China, where the Japan-born designer grew up. There was no way that mukcyen would not make it into our reviews this season. The fifteen labels we have reviewed were carefully selected from the many brands who presented. Quite a few are still developing, yet all have incredible potential. Please enjoy these collections from Tokyo’s future stars.

This latest fashion week seemed to mark a return to pre-pandemic normalcy. Nearly a year out since the Japanese government gave the greenlight to forgo facemasks, Tokyo is bustling once more with locals and foreign tourists alike taking to the streets in diverse style. As if responding to the freedom in the air, designers similarly brought a renewed enjoyment and spontaneity to their work. Moreover, the return of many familiar faces staging shows for a consecutive season suggested that the long-ailing Japanese fashion industry has at last begun to recover its former vitality. In terms of overall impressions, designers continued to raise the bar this season with extremely high-quality garments that largely showed a meticulous Japanese attention to detail and design. Whether a newcomer, perennial runway fixture, or a brand returning after a short hiatus, everyone brought their A-game this season, seemingly prepared to compete with their worthy peers spanning the spectrum of experience.  Perhaps the most encouraging trend this season was found off the catwalk, in the sheer number of promising young brands who presented collections in exhibition form. Sensitively sublimating uniquely inventive themes in their designs, these upstarts articulated an original worldview through a mix of innovative styling, lookbooks, and exhibition formats. These exhibitions offered a stimulation altogether different from adrenaline-packed runway shows and boded well for the future of Japanese fashion. With so many strong collections this season, it was difficult to choose which brands to feature here. Certainly, more than a few worthy brands were inevitably left on the editing room floor. Nonetheless, we at Technoculture Oligo Press (TCOP) hope this latest round of reviews provides a snapshot of the passion and soul the current cohort of designers is bringing to the act of creation, as the curtain rises on a new stage for Tokyo mode.

Doubly daunting is the fashion critic’s task in the era of diversity. Now that the global social zeitgeist has reached Tokyo’s runways, designers have been increasingly freed to give voice to nuanced and individual themes, making the notion of a monolithic “mainstream” a vestige of the past. While this flourishing of perspectives is a welcome and exciting development, it presents challenges to the writer tasked with pinning down any overarching trends come season roundup time. Nevertheless, a few salient keywords emerged at the latest installment of Tokyo Fashion Week. First, there was an overall impression of refinement. Continuing a shift away from street culture, this season’s runways were largely free of the excessive layering and embellishment once synonymous with Tokyo brands. Many collections stood out for their meticulous editing, shedding extraneous elements to reveal subtly refined designs. Now that the world’s fashions can be perused at our fingertips, it appears that designers’ aesthetic sense has matured by leaps and bounds. Bucking the tendency toward stereotypical cheerful Spring/Summer color palettes, this season’s runways were awash in muted monochromes. Black, in particular, caught the eye. Designers played with textures and silhouettes, teasing out a surprisingly diverse range of shades and impressions of the color. White also abounded in a conspicuous number of head-to-toe ensembles, capitalizing on the color’s connotations of purity. Similarly, short and cropped cuts—those usual harbingers of the Spring/Summer season—were in short supply this year, in favor of full ankle-covering dresses, trousers, and maxi-length outerwear. On balance, designers employed slits, cutouts, lace, and sheer fabric to subtly show off some skin, creating an impression of breezy elegance. Overall, the quality of Tokyo Fashion Week’s designs continues to rise, drawing ever closer to global standards. However, this season’s spotlight shone most brightly on brands making their runway debut. Indeed, very few of last season’s standouts returned to defend their crown. Among the brands featured by Technoculture Oligo Press (TCOP) last season, only two—VEIN and YOHEI OHNO—presented shows this season. Of course, runway shows are not the only measure of a brand. Last season’s fashion week alums have assuredly been actively expressing their worldview off the runway via installations, exhibitions, social media, and other avenues. Yet one couldn’t help but feel a little lonely this season, wondering what might have become of all those familiar faces who previously emerged from the pandemic, seemingly poised to herald a new era for the Tokyo mode. That said, this season of shows offered plenty of bold experimentation from brands both old and new. We hope you enjoy this latest cross-section of the many diverse strata populating the Tokyo fashion landscape.

TKY FW 2023 A/W We might posit fashion as a verb, meaning: to don the spirit of the times. As wearers, we viscerally inhabit a mercurial moment, as envisioned by designers—those rare creatures who acutely read the nuances of the culture and translate the zeitgeist into the singular yet universally utilitarian language of design. At Technoculture Oligo Press (TCOP), we aim to shine a spotlight on those true designers active in our home in Tokyo. On March 13th, 2023, the curtain rose on Tokyo Fashion Week—coincidentally the same day Japan lifted its recommendation to wear face masks in an easing of Covid-19 countermeasures. Nearly 60 brands descended on Tokyo, presenting their A/W 2023 collections with a hectic schedule of shows and events in front of audiences who buzzed with the seeming return to the capital’s pre-pandemic bustle. Having maintained a degree of “social distance” from Tokyo Fashion Week in recent years, I was pleasantly surprised to discover just how much Tokyo’s designers had grown over the interim. Past shows struck me as steeped in superficial shock value with overly designed collections in childish provocation at the expense of function. By contrast, this year saw many mature pieces capable of countervailing Western fashion conventions with a long-awaited sensitivity to Japanese aesthetics. It’s often said that Japan excels at repackaging disparate cultural cues into something new. At a certain point in time, this trope aptly encapsulated the energy of the Tokyo brands that voraciously and freely drew on diverse references to express an original viewpoint unbound by Western norms, with a momentum one prominent fashion journalist memorably described as a “breakneck sprint.” Following this mad dash across eras and culture, it seems Tokyo fashion has at last found its stride and opened a new chapter grounded in a more refined, measured approach to design. Each season, Technoculture Oligo Press (TCOP) will provide a curated rundown of the brands poised to lead Tokyo fashion into the future. Join us on a deep dive into the designers taking on the world from the catwalks of Tokyo.