JAPAN: Tokyo kicks off a week long fashion show highlighting its up-and-coming young designers

Record ID: 197457

  • Title: JAPAN: Tokyo kicks off a week long fashion show highlighting its up-and-coming young designers
  • Date: 7th September 2008
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) JAPANESE DESIGNER MIKIO SAKABE SAYING: "Japan Fashion Week has a potential to get really interesting. It still needs some work, but I'm looking real forward to it since more new designers will come out in the future."
  • Embargoed: 22nd September 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Fashion
  • Reuters ID: LVA67ZUMCF4U0MLPV0VRRBZZ5P3U
  • Story Text: Japan kicked off a massive one week long fashion show extravaganza on Monday (Sep 1) with many young and upcoming Japanese designers scrambling to put together their latest 2009 spring/summer collection.
    One of the first designers to hit the catwalk this season was Mikio Sakabe.
    Sakabe is one of the many Japanese designers seeking a new platform in Tokyo after several years of fashion experience in Europe.
    He and his Taiwanese co-designer Shueh Jen-Fang have built their brand image based on the futuristic pop culture in Tokyo and the collection has already been introduced in Paris and Milan's fashion week and has attracted many international fashionistas for its uniqueness.
    Their latest summer resort-themed collection includes a line-up of womenswear using nylons and cellophane-woven fabrics .
    "My intention was to make new Japanese fabrics look elegant,"
    Sakabe told Reuters backstage. "Japanese fabrics are interesting, but they look sportive and inorganic. I wanted to change that and make them more emotional so I also incorporated the resort theme," he added.
    Japan's fashion industry began to stage a twice annual fashion week three years ago in a joint effort with the government -- hoping to dress up Tokyo's image as a global style capital.
    Japan Fashion Week will be revealing collections from more than forty brands including ten newcomers, who are carefully selected by the event organiser.
    Tokyo - known for its trendy youth culture, brand obsessions and abundance of cutting-edge design talent - has long lagged behind Paris and New York, when it comes to fashion business and recognition.
    But Sakabe says Japan Fashion Week is a great opportunity for a large pool of unexplored Japanese talent.
    "Japan Fashion Week has a potential to get really interesting," said Sakabe. "It still needs some work, but I'm looking real forward to it since more new designers will come out in the future."
    Eri Utsugi, a Tokyo native and veteran designer at the fashion week, also revealed the latest collection of her brand "Mercibeaucoup".
    Utsugi started her own label three years ago and it has now grown into one of Japan's most popular brands.
    At the show, models - all dressed up in colorful multi-layering clothing with polka dots on their heads - strode down the runway.
    "I was inspired by this river water I saw in India. Water changes into various things, like it turns into rain, it freezes, gets warm and it becomes snow," Utsugi told Reuters backstage. "It's just so amazing and that's where I got my collection theme - 'changes.'"
    Utsugi's idea of flowing water also shined through models' makeup as they each had rain and tear drops painted on their faces.
    Japan is among the world's biggest fashion markets, with 88 billion U.S. dollars spent on apparel in 2003, according to government figures.
    While there is a wealth of home-grown talent of the likes of Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake that reigned strong in the 1970s and 80s, the younger generation of Japanese designers are still struggling for recognition.
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