Japanese Guy

Last year, we attended Japan Fashion Week in Tokyo to see firsthand its renewed attention to the runway. As profiled in our Tokyo City Trend Report and follow up features, we discovered some exciting menswear lines both on and off the runway. Diet Butcher Slim Skin, for example, is one of those standout designer names you probably first heard about on these pages. Nozomi Ishiguro, Niibo, Kiminori Morishita, and Tam Bas2 Lope are a few other labels that have emerged in our coverage, while other brands such as the Viridi-Anne and Attachment have also been featured over the years. As a new wave of Japanese labels increasingly gains recognition overseas, Tokyo-based contributor Martin Webb rounds up five edgy talents with local recognition and international promise.

Mister Hollywood
Daisuke Obana began his career in the fashion business as a vintage buyer, and his Mister Hollywood and N.Hoolywood lines draw heavily on the knowledge he acquired through years of sifting through tons of thrift-store stock in the US.

Mister Hollywood's three-story store in Tokyo's Aoyama district boasts heavy foot traffic every day of the week, and the brand enjoys top-selling status at dozens of boutiques all over Japan. With a conceptual approach to design unusual among Japanese menswear labels, Obana's runway shows, notable for their inspired casting, are consistently rated as the best in Tokyo. The brand's underwear collection is currently on sale at Paris boutique Colette, while a collection of men's wardrobe staples (reworked in the Mister Hollywood style) goes on sale at leading multilabel stores for the s/s '08 season.

John Lawrence Sullivan
This brand is named after the Irish-American bare-knuckle fighter who many argue was boxing's first modern world heavyweight champion, and who, in 1880s America, did much to bring the sport out of the shadows and into the mainstream consciousness. Since its start in the a/w '03-'04 season, the John Lawrence Sullivan label has enjoyed a rapid ascent to fame, making its debut at Tokyo Runway in the s/s '07 season. Its designer, Hiroshima-born Arashi Yanagawa, is himself a former professional boxer, and for that first season he created a line of boxing gear in conjunction with UK brand Lonsdale. Much of Yanagawa's product is based on traditional English style, and he uses fabrics from English mills for suits and shirts. The label caught our attention at H. Lorenzo in Los Angeles.

mercibeaucoup
After graduating from fashion-design school Esmod Japon, Eri Utsugi spent a year in Paris at Studio Bercot before going to work with Zucca and Tsumori Chisato at A-Net, the fashion firm founded by Issey Miyake to handle his protégés' solo efforts. In 2001, she moved to BIGI (the company behind Yoshie Inaba, and Zara's partner in Japan), where she launched FRAPBOIS, a brand that achieved huge popularity within the demographic that keeps the likes of Bernhard Willhelm and Jeremy Scott in business. Having returned to the A-Net fold for the launch of mercibeaucoup last year, Utsugi oversaw the launch of six new stores in the prime locations of Aoyama, Ginza, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku, and Kyoto.

The rapidity of the rollout over just seven weeks is testament to the vast following for the cutesy kawaii clothes for boys and girls she built up with FRAPBOIS. Utsugi's signature use of Technicolors for infantile drawings, animal motifs, polka dots and wacky stripes are images the West has come to associate with Japanese designs. While there are no immediate plans for a mercibeaucoup store outside of Japan — like other A-Net brands — the line pops up in international stores such as Kendo in Los Angeles and various London boutiques. The brand's moniker comes from a desire to impress her sincere thanks upon her audience — and the gratitude is certainly reciprocated.

soe
Resolutely steering clear of the current rush for dark, rock-inspired clothing that has been gripping the Japanese menswear scene for the past couple of years, soe — which debuted at the Tokyo Collections in 2004 — is steadily, quietly building a loyal customer base in Japan. Working out of a tatty old building in the painfully trendy Nakameguro area with a store on the first floor and an atelier on the second, designer Soichiro Ito creates a line of highly original men's clothing distinguished by meticulous cutting and experimentation with materials, including Japanese fabric technology. Soe, (pronounced "saw-ee"), which in Japanese has the double meaning of "originality" and "dress sense," attracts a highly sensitive, fashion-forward male customer who is less interested in trends than in standing out from the crowd.

Somarta
Former Issey Miyake design-team member Tamae Hirokawa debuted her Somarta brand two seasons ago to considerable acclaim in the Japanese fashion press. Based around lace, macramé, and knit bodysuits covered in Swarovski crystals, the label has been snapped up by super-boutique Restir, and is shown alongside superbrands like Marc Jacobs, Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent, and Fendi. The clinging catsuits are available as a line of underwear titled the 2nd Skin Series, and the brand also offers more wearable pieces including elegantly flowing pleated pants, trench coats, and capes of a unique unisex variety. With her debut collection inspired by Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel Secret Garden and the second staged in front of a screen showing images of swirling galaxies and a marching army of metallic flora, Hirokawa seems to have an intellectual bent and a sense of flair that is exceptional even for a Japanese designer.

-Martin Webb

Photos:
N.Hoolywood a/w '07-'08
John Lawrence Sullivan a/w '07-'08
mercibeaucoup a/w '07-'08
soe a/w '07-'08