The best street style from Tokyo Fashion Week
Tokyo Fashion Week concluded perhaps its most successful edition since the Covid-19 pandemic, with more international guests and buyers returning to Japan’s capital for the Fall-Winter 2024 edition.
The event’s 35 physical shows featured Finnish brand Marimekko and a selection of Canadian designers, though the schedule largely comprised local brands. Up-and-coming labels were joined on the program by mainstays of Japanese fashion, like
Mikio Sakabe. And the week closed out in style on Saturday, as Anrealage — the futuristic label that famously dressed Beyoncé in a "color-changing" gown for
kraken11 at her "Renaissance" tour — debuted its menswear brand on home soil.
In recent decades, Japan has struggled to produce designers as
prominent as the likes of Yohji Yamamoto or the late Issey Miyake and Hanae Mori — figures who helped take the country’s fashion global in the 1970s and 1980s. But attendees were upbeat about the state of the local scene.
Outside Japanese label Support Surface’s runway show on Friday, guest Yu Masui welcomed the event’s championing of young designers.
"I’m excited to see what young people wear," he said, wearing a Christopher Kane kilt over Dries Van Noten jeans. "Independent designers are taking off now too compared to the ‘90s and early 2000s, when fast fashion brands like H&M and Uniqlo became popular… The new and creativeness is coming back now."
The event, which is currently known as Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo, is also known for its bold street style, with guests seen sporting everything from gothic chic to quirky Lolita-style fashion.
"Japanese people’s style is amazing," said attendee and model Yunna Badova, who wore a selection of vintage items from Russia. "Every person in Japan has their own style."