2019 Spring and Summer Tokyo Fashion Week: Designers gather but have insufficient potential

On October 21st, sponsored by e-commerce giant Amazon, the six-day Tokyo Fashion Week came to an end.

The performance of this Tokyo Fashion Week is still mixed. Many people think that the 2019 spring and summer series will be full of applause, but in fact it is not optimistic for buyers and reporters and other industry insiders - although there are some bright spots, but the overall level is not the same as the previous season. Some people said that they found "remaining beads" outside the show.

Tokyo Fashion Award judge Nick Wooster said: "As with Milan, New York and Paris Fashion Week, the performance of each season will be ups and downs. At present, the Japanese market is adjusting direction. The performance of this season is not very good, but the total I can learn something and see some changes."

People in the industry are mixed

This is the fifth Tokyo Fashion Week sponsored by Amazon. From the brand lineup of participating in fashion shows and events, the organizers are constantly improving their entry barriers. But this season is not satisfactory, the At Tokyo project's Anrealage, N.Hoolywood, and Christian Dada and Bed JW Ford joint show four major brands, have been exhibited in other fashion weeks. These brands enhance the prestige and topic of Tokyo Fashion Week, but the potential commercial benefits are small. Miyamoto said: "The Paris Fashion Week is not an order of magnitude at all, and the fashion show is relatively poor, but for Tokyo Fashion Week itself, production is increasing year by year."

It is worth mentioning that Anrealage, headed by Kunihiro Morinaga, showed over 100 works in the past 15 years in front of more than 1,200 spectators. Morinaga Katsuhiko said that he hopes that Tokyo Fashion Week will “become a once-in-a-lifetime event for everyone.”

Hyke, the women's wear brand, held its first big show for the first time. The brand is now available at some of the top buyers in Japan and Asia, and Motofumi “Poggy” Kogi, the creative director of the buyer's operator United Arrows & Sons, said I am very optimistic about Hyke and believe that the brand has the potential to be welcomed by the Western market. “Hyke may be able to fill the gap in the market for fans who are currently looking for Celine in the Phoebe Philo era.”

Hyke's predecessor was the fashion brand Green. In 2013, the founders Hideaki Yoshihara and Yukiko Ode renamed the brand name Hyke, with a simple brand aesthetic, smooth clothing lines and fine fabrics. famous. Brands are known around the world for their brand names, such as Adidas Originals, Mackintosh, and more. During the fashion week, the brand presented a co-branded collection with The North Face, which combines the brand's modern design with classic military silhouettes and sporty style.

Tomomi Miyamoto, a men's clothing buyer at Hankyu Hanshin Department Store, said it plans to work with Comoli, a new Japanese brand that has not participated in Fashion Week. “Comoli uses Japan's unique fabrics, and the brand designers believe that the clothing needs to give people a fresh sense of wearing, I can feel the firm belief that the brand is not affected by the trend.”

Many buyers pointed out that although there are many new brands and young designers who participated in Fashion Week for the first time this year, none of them can become the mainstay of the next generation brand and succeed in the market at home and abroad. There are 20 first-time brands participating in this fashion week, including STAIR, IHNN, kotohaykozawa, malamute, Ksenia Schnaider, RABD and so on.

Keiko Shibasaki, a women's buyer of Hankyu Hanshin Department Store, said: “A lot of young brands have emerged. From these brand perspectives, it is a good thing to showcase the brand's worldview through important fashion weeks. On the other hand, there are many young brands. But I don't think they can take over Sacai, Toga and Mame to become the next star brand. Very few brands can strike a balance between pursuing originality and driving commercial products with sales growth."

Shimazaki Keiko said that the purchase budget for Japanese brands purchased this season was basically the same as before, and there was no plan to add Japanese brands. “I will go to Mister It's show, and if the work is not bad, I will place an order.” Mister It did not hold a fashion show this time.

Chisaki Keiko personally thinks that the best Japanese brand in the spring and summer of 2019 is The Dallas, which held a show. “In the last season, they had a fashion show at the main venue of Fashion Week, which sparked a wave of enthusiasm with fun fashion. This year they packed a floor of the hotel to showcase their work, and each room has a different story. They explained the brand's characteristics through the installation, and the work itself is also very good.” The Dallas is a designer brand founded in 2016 by Fumie Tanaka, whose design is inspired by women who are self-reliant. In addition to women's products, the brand also sells retro-style accessories.

More overseas brands

In this Tokyo Fashion Week, there are also many non-native brands. These brands from Austria, the Philippines, Indonesia and the United Kingdom, or joint catwalks, or stand alone. Nick Wooster said: "Japan is an island. This is good or bad. But in my opinion, if there is a chance to 'cross-pollination', it is a good thing for everyone."

This season, Taiwanese designer Shueh Jen-Fang's personal brand Jenny Fax reinterprets Japan's "Kawaii" style from a more interesting perspective. In the spring/summer 2019 series, the brand uses soft-toned polka dots, stripes, squares or printed fabrics, with exaggerated shoulders and puff sleeves, and a girly skirt with layered lace underwear. This time, the famous stylist Lotta Volkova was invited to take charge of the overall shape.

Ukrainian designer Ksenia Schnaider, who is attending Tokyo Fashion Week for the first time, said that Japan is one of the most important markets for personal brands and is currently working to expand the market. She was impressed with the level of detail of the event organization and the fashion week staff, as well as the overall atmosphere. “I like the audience of (Japan). The personal style is vivid and very real. The Parisians are very fashionable, but they seem to follow the same law of dressing. In Japan, everyone’s fashion life is self-contained.”

Tokyo Fashion Awards

For the emerging brands, Tokyo Fashion Week is the springboard for Paris – most of the brands that won the Tokyo Fashion Awards will join the Paris Fashion Week. During this fashion week, Auralee's designer Ryota Iwai won the Tokyo Fashion Award of Tokyo, and with the support of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, he will travel to Paris to showcase his work in the next two seasons.

The recipients of the 2019 Tokyo Fashion Award are: Cinoh by Takayuki Chino, Maoda by Hiroyuki Fujita, Anei by Haneishi Yu, Yuibu Shinji, Nobuyuki Matsui, Postegean by Yuya Nakata ( Nakata Yuya and Rainmaker by Koichi Watanabe & Ryutaro Kishi.

James Peters, vice president of Amazon Japan Fashion, pointed out that the company worked closely with the Japan Fashion Week Organization to promote comprehensive innovation of the event, but whether the two sides will continue to cooperate in the future remains to be discussed. “We will continue to evaluate the value-added components and continue to review the cooperation between the two parties to ensure that we do our best, but we have a wider consumer base in the Japanese market and we need to communicate with them.”