Fresh new voice in fashion
Meet designer Mitsuru Nishizaki, touted as a hot talent in Japan. But the acclaim doesn’t guarantee international stardom.
HE’S been hailed a “fresh new voice” by Vogue, won admiration from Giorgio Armani and bagged an award: Mitsuru Nishizaki is hot fashion talent in Japan. But that doesn’t guarantee international stardom.
Voluminous applause and uncharacteristic cheers erupted from the usually restrained Japanese fashion crowd at the 38-year-old’s packed Autumn/ Winter 2017 collection for brand Ujoh at the recent Tokyo Fashion Week.
The models strode out to upbeat techno tempo, tearing up a multi-lane catwalk in a high-energy show starring preppy-grunge, sporty-tailored chic that would not look out of place in New York.
It was eminently wearable with bright high-necked ribbed sweaters slashed at the side, a deconstructed pale pink trench coat and crisp shirts that button front and back to be styled how the wearer desires.
Shoes were trainer-meets-loafer – black with white soles and a yellow serrated grip, which he calls shark soles, worn with gypsy-style skirts, pin-stripped suits or slouchy velvet track bottoms.
Nishizaki set up Ujoh in 2009 after seven years as a Yohji Yamamoto pattern cutter. Six years later he won a design award sponsored by DHL and then in 2016 staged a show in Milan.
Armani provided his theatre for the venue, though Nishizaki didn’t meet the veteran Italian designer in person. Vogue wrote afterwards: “this is how cool girls dress now” and predicted a bright future for him.
But what does it take to make it outside Japan?
To follow in the footsteps of Issey Miyake, Yamamoto – Nishizaki’s former boss – and Rei Kawakubo, 20th century masters who have flown the nest to take their place among the greats in the fashion pantheon of Paris?
What are the hurdles that need to be overcome in a country where the fashion industry is embedded in exacting standards of tailoring, where creativity at times can take a back seat to doing it the right way?
Ujoh is already stocked in more than a dozen foreign cities such as Barcelona, New York and Seoul. Still, Nishizaki’s chief ambition is to expand further abroad.
But it’s a tough road to take domestic success to the next level.
In an interview at his showroom in Omotesando, a chic neighbourhood heaving with high-fashion boutiques, he was polite and earnest, but also shy and nervous behind the wide brim of a black floppy hat.
Nishizaki appears reluctant to present a compelling personal narrative in the rags-to-riches or fashion-ruled-my-childhood style that has helped many celebrated American designers market pret-aporter to a mass audience.
When it comes to his collections, he says he works in the style to which he became accustomed at Yamamoto: having an open mind and designing freely without pre-selecting a particular inspiration.
“It is a difficult question to answer and I wish you could give me some ideas,” Nishizaki ventured when asked if he thought it was harder to break through as a designer from Japan than from Europe or America.
But he does admit that the Japanese calendar is stacked against quick success on the international circuit. A RETIRED ballet dancer flipped the bird to her former profession, making her Tokyo Fashion Week debut by laying bare the pain behind the beauty of classical dance.
Chika Kisada (pic) fused ballet with punk – leather jackets paired with a gothic-style black tutu-esque skirt – and sent her models out in comfortable pink brogues with large net bows instead of pointe shoes.
Ballet-style net pinafore dresses were worn over knits with a leather-strap harness for a bohemian autumn/winter 2017 collection of little-girl fantasy meets the perilsof-the-real-world look.
Dramatic gold face masks – which mimicked the tiaras worn by ballerinas in classics such as Sleeping Beauty – were rustled up with the help of a ballet costume
Tokyo’s bi-annual style fest in March and October comes several weeks after the main fashion merry-go-round in New York, London, Milan and Paris comes to an end.
By then most international editors and buyers are too exhausted and saturated to board a long-haul flight to Tokyo. maker whom she knows through her old life.
The 36-year-old turned to fashion after years of gruelling training and prizes failed to lead to the topflight ballerina career that she had dreamt of “ever since I can remember”.
She danced for 16 years, studying “from dawn to dusk” and ended up at Asami Maki Ballet, one of the leading classical companies in Japan.
Then she quit.
“I didn’t do anything for a while, but when I thought of jobs I can express myself through the body, it came to me that being a designer could be similar,” she said.
While she launched a first fashion line 10 years ago, Kisada won an award last year for her eponymous second brand.
And if you think “elegance of “What I really should do now is rearrange my brand schedule for press and sales not only in Japan but overseas,” Nishizaki said.
Misha Janette, a Tokyo-based stylist, creative director and blogger who has lived in Japan since 2004, said a major challenge for many Japanese designers trying to cut it in the West are different tastes.
She summed up the Japanese market as conservative and casual, rather than expensive and high fashion, warning that simple clothes were “not going to sell” in Paris.
“I think the most important thing is to have a balance of show pieces, interesting things that show their viewpoint with simple off the rack to satisfy both. That’s hard,” she said.
“Most Japanese brands don’t have the investment, it’s just girls and boys doing it alone out of their garage,” she said. “Instead of having this balance of show pieces and wearable pieces it becomes either or.” – AFP ballet” and “vitality of punk” are an odd combination, then Kisada is out to prove you wrong.
Ballet, she explains, is “not only” the beauty on stage. What the audience doesn’t see, she explains, is the torment and agony that dancers endure in a notoriously competitive and rigorous art form.
“I experienced the gulf between front and backstage, and the frustration. I want to stick my middle finger up at it,” she explained.
“So I channelled that feeling into a punk spirit,” she said. “I wanted to express that there is not only beauty. For example you see ugly injuries and a painful expression behind a smiling face on stage.”
Her ambition now is to dress independent women and crack the European market, having already acquired stockists in Canada, China, Lebanon and Russia. – AFP