Four Tokyo-based designers reinterpret the enduring codes of Japanese menswear.&nbsp;

Menswear aficionados agree: If you want to go shopping, head to Tokyo.
The Japanese city is a mecca for styles from avant-garde deconstructivism&mdash;in the wake of Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto&rsquo;s Paris debuts in the 1980s&mdash;to vintage Americana, gorpcore, and, of course, streetwear&mdash;which made its home in &rsquo;90s Harajuku before shaping mainstream fashion in the 2010s and beyond.
Whether you&rsquo;re after tailored minimalism, newly patented technical fabrics, or a stubborn fidelity to handcraft traditions, Japanese designers have it in spades. This is owing to both the country&rsquo;s rich manufacturing expertise and talent pool, explains Kaoru Imajo, director of Japan Fashion Week. &ldquo;In Japan, you can make anything from denim to leather jackets, to tailoring and puffer jackets, and there are all kinds of talented designers. So, when a trend comes, Japan has a brand ready to meet those needs.&rdquo;
The sheer number of niche brands, and the culture&rsquo;s penchant for hyperspecialization, have bolstered the menswear scene&rsquo;s enigmatic feel. But language barriers are an undeniable factor, and in our age of digital oversharing, being given less by designers&mdash;particularly those already inclined to let their work speak for itself&mdash;is a breath of fresh air.
&ldquo;In Japan, the concept of quiet luxury wasn&rsquo;t new,&rdquo; adds Motofumi Kogi (known widely as Poggy), a retail veteran, tastemaker, and street-style darling. &ldquo;It may seem boring, but the pure products, without words, are what people want now.&rdquo; Lucky for us, four of the country&rsquo;s most watched menswear designers allowed us a peek behind the curtain at the inspirations and techniques that made up their most recent collections.

In the quiet pressroom of Auralee&rsquo;s Minami-Aoyama studio, Ryota Iwai is doing what he does best. He runs a hand over an ultra-thin nylon, a fabric so translucent it seems to vibrate, then over a substantial wool-piled herringbone in such a vibrant shade of blue it seems to be a wordless rebuttal to the gray slush of an urban winter.
&ldquo;Winter is usually considered cold, dark, or heavy,&rdquo; Iwai says via a translator, explaining his starting point for Auralee&rsquo;s Fall 2026 collection, which was filled with mood-lifting colors and richly textured layers. &ldquo;But I think the season has its advantages&mdash;the crisp air you breathe, the way the light enters. I wanted to create a season where we look at the good parts.&rdquo;
It is this specific brand of optimism&mdash;a refusal to let the garment overpower the person; a rigorous attention to detail&mdash;that has propelled Auralee from a niche textile-first project in 2015 to one of the most anticipated fixtures on the Paris Fashion Week calendar. But for Iwai, the label is less a fashion brand and more an ongoing exercise in the meticulousness and sensitivity Japanese craft is so known for.
Born in Kobe, Iwai, 42, did not have a straightforward path into the industry. While he eventually graduated from the prestigious Bunka Fashion College, his real education took place in used-clothing shops and the archives of Norikoike, a knitwear label where he learned to create original threads from scratch. That training stuck. To this day, an Auralee design does not begin with a moodboard, a silhouette, or ready-made fabrics; instead, it begins with fibers, such as the ultra-thin nylon that, like most textiles used by the brand, was developed especially for its collection.
&ldquo;My inspiration mainly comes from the fabric and material development process itself,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a snowball effect, where the research informs what kind of fabric we want to create, and the fabrics decide what shapes will best showcase them.&rdquo;

This season, that meant translating the word light into physical form. The result is a collection that defies traditional winter heaviness, utilizing silk georgette and primary colors to lend visual buoyancy to cold-weather dressing. It&rsquo;s a move that challenges a market in which consumers often justify high-priced outerwear by sticking to safer blacks and navy blues.
&ldquo;We definitely feel that sense of risk,&rdquo; Iwai admits. &ldquo;But for me, that sense of color is the first flash for the eyes. I want to challenge myself to make something bold that is still in the realm of wearability.&rdquo;
This deft design sensibility has garnered Auralee a cult following that spans generations&mdash;from 20-year-olds in Shibuya to 50-somethings in Paris. Despite its global scale, the business remains rooted in the same domestic factories Iwai has used since the brand&rsquo;s inception. &ldquo;If anything, being able to provide that support back to those people who are so integral to the brand&mdash;that&rsquo;s been the biggest change,&rdquo; he says.
In an industry centered around growth and numbers, Iwai&rsquo;s mindset and fiber-first approach make him a real outlier. When asked about his goals for Auralee, Iwai says, &ldquo;I just want to make something better than the last&hellip;to keep on continuing.&rdquo;
Even when prompted about his philosophy, Iwai avoids typical industry jargon. He isn&rsquo;t interested in being minimalist or disruptive. Instead, he settles on a word that feels fittingly unadorned.
&ldquo;I think he would want to convey a sense of humanity,&rdquo; his translator offers after a moment of reflection. &ldquo;Having it feel sincere: if that can come across, that would be his goal.&rdquo;

While sustainable has become a diluted buzzword on the design scene, Yusuke Takahashi is preoccupied with a more rigorous metric: meaningfulness. As the founder of CFCL (Clothing For Contemporary Life), the Tokyo-based designer is not merely creating a wardrobe; he is programming one for the future.
&ldquo;A lot more clothing items are being produced each year than the population needs,&rdquo; Takahashi notes, citing UN studies on the environmental impact of fashion. &ldquo;With the rise of fast fashion, there are so many &lsquo;meaningless&rsquo; clothes. I felt I should make clothing with meaning. That is the core idea of my brand.&rdquo;
Takahashi&rsquo;s pedigree is rooted in the avant-garde technicality of Issey Miyake, where he spent a decade, eventually serving as the designer for Issey Miyake Men. It was there that he inherited a specific philosophy from Mr. Miyake himself: that design must serve a purpose within society, bridging the gap between human need and industrial output. When he struck out on his own in 2020, Takahashi chose a name that functioned as a manifesto rather than a personal branding exercise.
The result is a menswear collection that feels less like traditional tailoring and more like high-performance hardware. Utilizing 3-D computer knitting&mdash;a process akin to 3-D printing&mdash;Takahashi creates garments directly from yarn, bypassing the wasteful &ldquo;cut-and-sew&rdquo; process entirely. &ldquo;The cutting process has a lot of waste, but we can skip it,&rdquo; he explains.
The designer&rsquo;s signature Milano Rib jackets are often crafted from 100 percent recycled polyester, offering a wrinkle-resistant, quick-drying functionality that caters to the established man: a term Takahashi uses to refer to the brand&rsquo;s core city-dwelling shopper. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he views his work through the lens of software development. &ldquo;We call it updating for the next era&mdash;like updating an application on an iPhone,&rdquo; he says. It is a slow, iterative process of refinement.

This season, Takahashi&rsquo;s challenge was to imbue these synthetic, high-tech fibers with a natural soul. &ldquo;I investigated how to give synthetic fibers the atmosphere and depth of natural fibers,&rdquo; he says. By mixing colors&mdash;terracotta with turquoise, or black with brown&mdash;he has developed a palette that mimics the gravity of traditional wool while retaining the &ldquo;effortless elegance&rdquo; of a knit. The silhouettes are boxy and loose, referencing the proportions of European suits from a century ago, but stripped of their rigid internal structures.
Takahashi, 40, is particularly interested in the shifting habits of the Japanese businessperson. &ldquo;People are not as interested in traditional suits for business anymore,&rdquo; he observes, noting that traditional tailoring feels increasingly out of step with Tokyo&rsquo;s casual shift. This has created a space for CFCL&rsquo;s technical&mdash;yet low-maintenance&mdash;tailoring to flourish.
As he prepares to further expand CFCL&rsquo;s menswear presence globally, Takahashi remains focused on the potential of his medium. &ldquo;My challenge is always making new clothing with computer-programmed knitting. I would like to update the image of knitting.&rdquo; In his hands, the cardigan loses its casual domesticity and becomes a garment fit for the office, the airport lounge, and everywhere in between.

Kiichiro Asakawa&rsquo;s work begins not with a sketch, but with a collection&mdash;in the anthropological, rather than fashion, sense of the word. Long before he was a designer, Asakawa was an everyday archivist, running a multibrand shop and collecting vintage clothes. That early intimacy with the life cycle of a sleeve, or the patina of old corduroy, remains the backbone of Ssstein, which he founded in 2016.
Asakawa, who started out remaking his vintage garments, isn&rsquo;t trying to invent a new language; he is trying to perfect the one we already speak. &ldquo;Seeing customers happy and wearing pieces I had carefully crafted one by one, was the starting point. I continue to focus on creating things that I sincerely find beautiful.&rdquo;
For Fall/Winter 2026, that beauty is found in the &ldquo;luminous scenes&rdquo; of domestic life rather than the high-fashion runway. The collection manifests in floor-sweeping overcoats in textured, salt-and-pepper tweeds and fluid trousers that collapse elegantly at the ankles, capturing a lived-in tactility. Asakawa cites as inspirations the shifting colors of autumn leaves and the sight of an elderly couple in a restaurant&mdash;the &ldquo;quietly special&rdquo; moments that remind a designer to root their senses in a &ldquo;neutral, open state&rdquo; as they move through life.&nbsp;

But Asakawa is both sentimental and technically rigorous, being acutely aware of the discerning nature of Japanese consumers. &ldquo;There are many people in Japan who have a deep love for clothing,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;They want to wear something with the knowledge of the factory background and fine details.&rdquo;
For Asakawa, satisfying this scrutiny is a shared language between designer and wearer. And at 39, he designs for his own generation&mdash;men who have moved past the loud trends of their youth and are now looking for &ldquo;designs that feel natural and wearable, yet that offer something distinctive.&rdquo; This desire is gaining traction: While his business remains largely domestic, his international footprint is growing as global shoppers gravitate toward his serene, balanced aesthetic.
Looking ahead, Asakawa eschews grand corporate ambitions for a more meditative goal. He spends his creative blocks walking or with his family, resetting a mind that is constantly &ldquo;gathering and connecting small fragments of inspiration.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I try to move through each day with care,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;If Ssstein can continue for 10 or 20 years and reach even more people, I would be truly happy.&rdquo;

Masayuki Ino is Japanese fashion&rsquo;s great prankster. Since founding Doublet in 2012, the LVMH Prize winner has built a reputation for clothes that demand a double-take, from &ldquo;compressed&rdquo; shirts packaged like snacks to garments that change shape when exposed to heat. Yet as his latest collection, &ldquo;Air,&rdquo; proves, the designer&rsquo;s wit is now being harnessed to address the most ubiquitous of crises: that of the environment.
&ldquo;The most important things should be conveyed cheerfully,&rdquo; Ino says, quoting the novelist Kotaro Isaka. It is a philosophy that defines Ino&rsquo;s trajectory. While his contemporaries might lean into the gravity of climate change, Ino approaches it with a characteristic wink. For Fall 2026, he turned to the atmosphere itself, utilizing yarn spun from captured carbon dioxide and ink derived from carbon extracted from exhaust gases.
On the runway, this manifested in voluminous, puffer-like jackets that hover around the body like pockets of oxygen, and translucent layers that shift with the wearer&rsquo;s movements to mimic a breeze. &ldquo;Air is something invisible, yet undeniably present,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The efforts of material developers and engineers are also largely invisible. Through clothing, this collection explores how such &lsquo;imperceptible&rsquo; elements might be made perceptible.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s a technical feat that could easily feel clinical, were it not for Ino&rsquo;s insistence on &ldquo;affirming humor and vulnerability&rdquo; over rigid efficiency.
Born in Japan&rsquo;s Gunma Prefecture, Ino, 46, served a formative stint as a footwear designer at Mihara Yasuhiro before launching Doublet, with a desire to reflect the societal zeitgeist rather than follow the menswear blueprint. To Ino, the distinction between genders is less interesting than the reaction a garment elicits.

&ldquo;Our customers can&rsquo;t really be defined by age or profession,&rdquo; he says of his following, which is distributed evenly between Japan and the international market. &ldquo;What they share is an openness&mdash;people whose conversations expand when they see our clothes, and who respond with a smile.&rdquo;
For Ino, an appreciation for the &ldquo;unnecessary&rdquo; is what sets the Japanese consumer apart. While he acknowledges locals&rsquo; attention to construction and technique&mdash;a level of detail he describes as &ldquo;intimidating but healthy&rdquo;&mdash;he also notes a uniquely Japanese ability to appreciate nuance and &ldquo;what is left unsaid.&rdquo;
In an industry currently obsessed with the meaning of a brand, Ino&rsquo;s metric is refreshingly simple: Is it interesting? and Is there a reason this should exist? He isn&rsquo;t concerned with the relentless pursuit of scale. Instead, he spends his creative blocks in the sauna&mdash;one of our few remaining phone-free zones&mdash;plotting ways to make his label &ldquo;deeper&rdquo; rather than bigger.
&ldquo;On the surface, what we do might look like we&rsquo;re simply doing something fun,&rdquo; Ino says. &ldquo;But if we can communicate what truly matters within a sense of enjoyment, I believe it&rsquo;s more likely to stay with people as a lasting memory.&rdquo; In the crowded theater of Paris Fashion Week, Doublet maintains a rare balance between the spectacle and the sincere.

The Designers Defining Tokyo’s Menswear Renaissance

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