Okinawa fashion: new style for tropical islands
Okinawa, the Japanese archipelago home to thousands of US troops and popular with scuba divers, is looking beyond its beach resorts and World War II battle sites to bag a spot in high fashion.
A two-and-a-half-hour flight from Tokyo, Okinawa couldn’t be more different from the Japanese capital, where the fashion set reach for tights and tailored jackets on even a balmy autumn day and look down their noses at homespun “resort wear”.
But rather than bend to Tokyo’s will, two fashion houses on Okinawa have wider horizons: putting the subtropical island chain on the fashion map in its own style.
Both directors jetted into Tokyo for fashion week to meet buyers and journalists, but opted to stage their run- way shows on Okinawa Island — live streaming them online to reach a wider audience.
“Fashion is not only for people in Tokyo. That’s what I want to prove,” Roberto Yoshida, creative director of Okinawamade, told AFP.
Holding shows in other parts of Japan, a country made up of hundreds of inhabited islands with a population of 127 million — around double that of Britain — will make fashion week more interesting, he says.
The 38-year-old, the grandson of a Spanish woman, who also designs biker gear for Honda and runs a high-end line patronised by the likes of US rocker Lenny Kravitz, is holding his catwalk show on Saturday in an old elementary school with Okinawan women starring as his models.
“I wanted to establish a brand that represents Okinawa,” he says. “It has been my dream since high school.”
The brand is officially menswear, but his appeal is broader: 70 percent of his customers are young women from their teens to 30s, he says, and 30 percent come from outside Japan, mostly China.
For fellow island label Lequio it’s also about more than the island’s blue skies, crystalline sea, hibiscus flowers: it’s about promoting the island’s unique culture and history.
“We want to present original products that can be made nowhere else,” director Yoshinari Kakazu said.
Lequio’s spring/summer 2017 collection features a traditional Okinawa indigo dye and Kakazu wants to move into agriculture to support its production with farming on the wane.
He shows a beautifully soft indigo T-shirt dyed with intricate white patterns, which come from a kimono his mother wears for doing traditional dance.
Lequio also has a second line, Made In Occupied Japan, that fashions US military attire into bags. The same cloth has been made into a hooded sundress for spring/ summer 2017.
Around 47,000 Americans troops are stationed in Japan, more than half of them on Okinawa, which was occupied for 27 years after World War II.
While US culture has deeply influenced the island, rapes, assaults and hit-and-run accidents by US troops, their dependents and civilians have also fanned controversy and protests.
“We’re using this name ironically to turn negative heritage into a plus point,” says Kakazu.
But neither Kakazu nor Yoshida will be drawn on what they think of the bases, which also provide local jobs. Both have American friends and say US culture has been a huge influence.
Lequio’s show was held in the courtyard of an old American officers’ mess in what Kakazu calls “the Beverly Hills of Okinawa”. It was live streamed on Monday, the first day of Tokyo Fashion Week.
For his AFP interview Yoshida wore his own sweater printed with Mickey Mouse and Okinawa, as well as widebrimmed rapper-style cap.
Fashion is not only for people in Tokyo. That’s what I want to prove.” Roberto Yoshida, a creative director of Okinawamade