The Tamesis
Many prominent Tokyo designers, including Fetico, Pillings, Kamiya and Keisuke Yoshida, are showing ahead of this season’s Tokyo Fashion Week, largely due to increasingly tight production schedules. As Tokyo Fashion Week draws to a close on Saturday, their absence raises questions about the relevance of the official schedule and presents a major challenge for the Japan Fashion Week Organization (JFWO) to fill the week with interesting talent.
There will be 33 physical shows in autumn and winter 2026, 32 in autumn and winter 2025, and 25 in spring and summer 2026, as organizers continue to invest in expanding the event. A host of new faces from the awards, some inventive world-building and a wider international reach from guests and designers have brought energy to the week, but its competitive status as an international showcase remains tentative.
Although Tokyo has been criticized in the past for being too closed-minded, this is the most international Tokyo Fashion Week in recent years, with JFWO inviting a total of 16 international guests. Attendees included Manuel Marelli, head of procurement at 10 Corso Como Milano; Sunny Luk, deputy director of procurement at IT Hong Kong; and Blake Abbie, director of procurement at 10 Corso Como Milano; curated magazine.
Awards support schedule
To fill the void left by temporary gigs, this season’s Tokyo schedule relies heavily on awards. Fall and winter are a time for fashion shows for the eight annual winners of the Tokyo Fashion Awards (TFA), who each receive a prize of 1 million yen ($6,300) and the opportunity to host a showroom during Paris Fashion Week.
“We feel like this season is full of energy because of the designers at the Tokyo Fashion Awards,” said JFWO director Kaoru Imajo. This year’s winners included Kakan Kudo, who showcased avant-garde knitwear; Kotoha Yokozawa, who showed a vibrant collection of bright cutouts; and Mukcyen, by Yuka Kimura, which ended the week with a show of gothic costumes inspired by the style of Marie Antoinette.
Tokyo Fashion Awards solo winner Yoke kicked off the week on Sunday night with an elegant womenswear show by designer Norio Terada. Yoke also temporarily showed menswear during Paris Fashion Week in January, aiming to attract a more international crowd. The brand added 10 new stores this season, including heavyweight brands such as Harrods department store in London and Venn Space in New York, bringing its total number of domestic stores to 50 and 32 in other regions. “So far, even our new stores have been mostly up-and-coming, relatively unknown stores, but this time we got a lot of offers from bigger places,” Terada said.
