Tokyo Fashion Week: A Combination of Tokyo Street Fashion and Tradition

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Sponsored by Rakuten, the first Tokyo Fashion Week has just concluded. This season of Tokyo Fashion Week presented a youthful and streetwear-centred aesthetic going against the global trend of returning to a more mature and authentic fashion that has arisen as a response to the current environmental and political troubles. A number of brands showcased more wearable collections, while a common thread that ran through the entire week was a community of fans centred around a Japanese sympathy. The vintage culture unique to the streets of Tokyo also made an impressive statement.

Including Shanghai and Seoul as other competing fashion weeks from neighbouring Asian countries, Tokyo Fashion Week has more reason than ever to showcase a unique aesthetic. Although the event is still sponsored by an e-commerce giant, it has now shifted from one driven by foreign capital to a Japanese business. If the fashion week succeeds in establishing its unique credentials, it could find a new significance that surpasses being just a springboard to the four major cities.

One of the unique developments in Japanese streetwear culture is its own take on vintage clothing, “furugi,” that is distinctly different from chic vintage styles found in Europe. During the heyday of Harajuku street fashion, a distinct and unique style was formed by combining designer brands with vintage and second-hand clothing and by cutting them up and reassembling them as experimental “remakes”. A new group of young designers that grew up in this era have emerged with a modern, DIY, and street aesthetic and this could clearly be seen at Balmung and Bodysong’s runway shows.

Rakuten is considering sponsoring the event for the next 10 years. Although its first season with the fashion week has been somewhat lacking in the high octane glamour of past seasons sponsored by Amazon, this season marked the beginning of a long-term change that will depend on how the new generation of young designers will develop and indeed how the event will develop in partnership with the domestic e-commerce platform.