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Tokyo, Japan. Photographer: Tawatchai Prakobkit | iStock.
Tokyo, cut differently
By Tiffany West
Briefly …
Tokyo’s fashion identity has never belonged to a single look. Across the city, traditional textile craft, precision tailoring, experimental design and street culture reveal very different ideas about what Japanese fashion can be.
Tokyo does not have one fashion district so much as a collection of them, each shaped by its own history, clientele and creative temperament. From Ginza to Daikanyama and on towards Omotesando and Ura-Harajuku, the changes can be striking. Established luxury gives way to understated contemporary design, centuries-old forms are reconsidered for modern wardrobes, and meticulously preserved craftsmanship sits alongside technology capable of changing how clothes are made.
A new experience from Palace Hotel Tokyo has taken that diversity as its starting point. ‘Couture Tokyo: The Art of Japanese Fashion’ uses three areas of the city as gateways into Japanese fashion and textile culture. Fashion and luxury culture scholar Kaori Nakano has curated the tours, which take guests through Ginza, Daikanyama or Omotesando and Ura-Harajuku.
Ginza, Tokyo. Image courtesy Tokyo Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Ginza: the establishment
Few places represent established Tokyo quite like Ginza. International luxury houses occupy some of the most valuable retail territory in Japan, but behind the familiar names is a longer Japanese story of craftsmanship, commerce and design. Wako is particularly emblematic. Housed in the landmark Seiko House, the retailer traces its current incarnation to 1947 and remains associated with jewellery, watches, fashion and Japanese decorative arts. Its own jewellery is designed and produced by in-house designers and artisans, while its basement has become an exhibition space for Japanese art and craft, including work by established masters and younger artists.
Nearby, Dover Street Market Ginza offers an almost deliberate disruption. Spread across seven floors, its mix of designers, streetwear and unconventional presentation belongs to a much more restless fashion culture. The juxtaposition is useful. Tokyo fashion did not progress neatly from tradition to modernity, leaving one behind as the other emerged. The city has become adept at allowing very different design languages to occupy the same ground.
Daikanyama: an evolving elegance
Daikanyama changes the register again. Among its fashion landmarks is the flagship boutique of Jun Ashida, one of the important figures in the development of Japanese prêt-à-porter. Ashida established his fashion house in the 1960s and built an international reputation around an approach frequently characterised as elegant but practical.
Jun Ashida was one of the important figures in the development of Japanese prêt-à-porter. Images courtesy Palace Hotel Tokyo.
Ashida’s career also charts an important period in Japan’s emergence as an international fashion force. Long before Japanese designers became routinely discussed on the global stage, Ashida was building a fashion business capable of moving between Japanese and international worlds. Today, the house is led creatively by his daughter Tae Ashida, whose work continues that conversation while developing a contemporary identity of its own.
Nearby, Mizen Tokyo approaches luxury from another direction. Its Atelier + Showroom deliberately brings the places of making and selling closer together. Under its philosophy of “Slow Fashion, Slow Luxury”, attention is directed towards materials, technique and the human work embedded in a finished garment. The proximity between workshop and boutique matters. Given how readily “luxury” can be reduced to price, scarcity or branding, discovering how something is made returns the emphasis to skill.
Omotesando, Tokyo. Photographer: Chachamal | iStock.
Omotesando: old forms, new lives
Omotesando presents yet another Tokyo. The broad, tree-lined avenue is famous for international fashion houses and architecture, but its surrounding streets lead towards Ura-Harajuku, long associated with Japanese street culture and independent fashion. Here, some of the most interesting work is occurring around one of Japan’s oldest forms of dress.
Kimono Yamato has more than a century of experience in kimono, but its contemporary approach does not depend upon treating the garment solely as something ceremonial or preserved from the past. Its designs explore how kimono can continue to function within modern Japanese life. Under the same creative umbrella, Y. & Sons approaches the form through menswear, designing kimono that can be combined with Western clothing. Kimono Arch takes a more playful approach for men and women.
The distinction is important, because while preservation can keep a tradition intact, continued use asks it to remain adaptable. That conversation between inherited knowledge and contemporary life appears elsewhere in the neighbourhood in very different forms. CFCL – Clothing For Contemporary Life – uses computer-programmed 3D knitting technology to produce garments intended to combine practicality, comfort and contemporary design while reducing material waste. Here, Japanese precision is expressed not through the preservation of an old technique but through the possibilities of a new one. Porter, by contrast, makes craftsmanship unusually visible. The Japanese bag maker’s flagship incorporates a workshop where visitors can watch artisans at work, putting the process of construction within sight of the finished product.
The Premier Suite, Palace Hotel Tokyo. Image courtesy Palace Hotel Tokyo.
Wearing the city
Palace Hotel Tokyo draws these threads together through its fashion tours, with guests able to choose a trained private guide or, for an additional charge, explore with Kaori Nakano herself and an interpreter. A longer bespoke tour with Nakano can also be arranged according to individual interests.
Back at the hotel, the fashion theme continues in a less expected form. The included kaiseki dinner at Wadakura features a special shabu-shabu presentation associated with the late Kenzo Takada, who was reportedly fond of the dish while staying at Palace Hotel Tokyo. Takada’s arrival in Paris and subsequent international success helped introduce a radically different Japanese creative voice to European fashion in the 1970s. His story also belongs to an era when international recognition for Japanese fashion was frequently measured through success elsewhere. Decades later, Japanese designers no longer need to be understood principally through what happened in Paris, London or New York.
“Decades later, Japanese designers no longer need to be understood principally through what happened in Paris, London or New York.”
For solo travellers, that makes fashion an unusually accessible route into the city. These are neighbourhoods that reward wandering rather than simply arriving, where a major fashion house can lead to an atelier, a gallery, a tiny independent store or an entirely different subculture a few streets away. Explore Tokyo through its fashion imprint and another map of the city begins to appear – one drawn through craft, commerce, technology, inheritance and reinvention.