When I talked in a grandiose way about 'getting my investigative teeth' into finding out why Japanese labels were not widely stocked in Europe, or more specifically the UK, I was clearly all fluff and no solid centre. A commentor very quickly answered in part why technically, importing Japanese designers is a bit of nightmare which saved from actually getting investigative. Forgive me for pummelling maths and business down your throat so early on a Monday morning...
"One reason Japanese brands aren't prolific in the uk is that the cost price of units are prohibitively expensive (especially so because of the exchange rate from Yen to Sterling). This is before distribution costs such as freight for stock, customs duties, VAT, administration, and agent commissions are factored in. The final retail prices ends up being much more than what the market can bear if the standard trade markup of 2.3-2.5 is applied. There are always exceptions to the rule, such as the cult brands Visvim, Neighborhood, Yamamoto but they have spent years cultivating brand awareness and a very specific following that is willing to pay over the odds."
Last time round I proposed one solution to get round the above problem - the website Koshka which stocks 20 Japanese labels at varying levels of familiarity - but here I'm rounding up some of my recent Japanese that were procured by means other than going to Japan directly, as well as re-affirming the good of Koshka.
I was also prompted to do this round-up, by the section devoted to the new generation of Japanese designers that have broken through in recent years. I felt there may have been some omissions but then again, it was a section of about four silhouettes, not allowing portrayal of the dizzying breadth that the designers who show at Japan Fashion Week and those that present more discreetly in Paris have to offer. Dependent on perspective, these designers that I'm flagging up aren't really considered 'new' either but nonetheless I've broken it down as thus...
(Toga grey patent jacket, Topshop peter pan collar shirt, Shida Tatsuya metallicised woolen cape, Kolor grey tweed trousers, Alexander Wang wedges)
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Toga
Longtime readers will be familiar with this grey patent jacket that has gotten much 23q4 since I bought it at the Feathers sample sale a few years ago. Most will probably be familiar with Toga full stop. Going back to Feathers, it's also one of the few shops in London that has a good lot of Toga (still eyeing up the layered kilt skirt that's on sale right now) which makes Toga probably slightly more accesible than others. The designer Yasuko Furata graduated from ESMOD in 1994 and founded Toga in 1997, becoming known for her multi-layered styles. In recent seasons, I've especially become enamoured with her use of varying textures and embellishment details which somehow justifies a full-wack price for say a layered kilt. Toga's latest S/S 11 collection plays a similar tune to Givenchy's except the leopard print is softened here and there are plenty of floral brocades pieces and neat collared-shirts to offset the animal.
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Kolor
Shamefully I only discovered Kolor through shopping at Lane Crawford on my last trip to Hong Kong where I also incidentally won a leather jacket by the same label in the 160th Anniversary arcade fest where everyone was a winner. I believe Kolor may well be more well-known on the menswear circuit as Oki-Ni and blogs like Slamxhype have all been krazy about Kolor for a while now. Vogue.com's profile on Kolor provides much insight into the label's inception - designer Junichi Abe, a Bunka Fashion College graduate, having worked at Comme des Garcons, started Kolor in 2004. The emphasis is not on major seasonal shifts but on wardrobing cornerstones made in fabrics that have a lived-in quality. This doesn't equal lazy fabric frays or deliberately torn holes but rather the fabrics are of the utmost priority for Abe. The tweed trousers that I ended up buying from Lane Crawford, notching up my first Kolor purchase, never cease to catch the eye not because of the more obvious detailing such as the zippers but it's down to the texture - a lady on the bus once said 'Those look nice and nubbly.' That these nubbly trousers manage to fit well is an added bonus of a blessing. The Corner seems to have 'cornered' Kolor's retail presence online and hopefully they'll be getting in some of these sportswear-inspired pieces from the S/S 11 collection...
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Shida Tatsuya
Then we come to the main event - correction, the most hulking event - in the outfit pictures. The Shida Tatsuya fuzzball of a cape with its silver sheen, which I admired from Koshka's website is now on my back after some troublesome Royal Mail issues (I still have 2010 snow-delay packages yet to arrive...). After playing around with its haphazard shape for a while, I've decided that a number of things can be done with it but primarily it will function as a bulging skirt, akin to tying a puffa jacket around your waist and as a predescribed cape, again more like a giant chunky jumper that's draped over the shoulders. Shida Tatsuya studied at Nagoya Mode Gakuen and started his label in 2006, showing as part of Japan Fashion Week. There's a playfulness that I see in Tatsuya's clothes, similar to what I love about the likes of Tsumori Chisato and mercibeacoup. There's a naturalistic approach to draping fabrics on the body which is probably why there's irregularity in the cape and the way dresses and cardigans fall. I quite like this sort of generosity in fabric which pervades quite a lot of Asian-based designers. I quite happily accept the bag lady jam jar label and will go about my merry way even if someone might shout "There's a sheep hanging around your arse!"
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Koshka's selection continues to grow since I last talked about this German-based site that aims to bring Japanese designers to the world. Their selection doesn't focus on the established names that are in the leagues of say Toga or Kolor but rather on slightly lesser-known names that focus on craft and wearability, reflected in a selection that doesn't prescribe to our notions of Japanese avant garde. It's worth regular checking-out if only for stocking up on Ayame socks.
(From left to right, top to bottom: The Dress & Co. hooded green jacket, Fil de Fer print knit cardigan, M & Kyoto shawl collar mixed print jacket, Durbuy clogs)
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