Posts by: Samuel
We have been discussing the influence of Akihabara culture on fashion quite recently on Tokyo Telephone. It all began with the Akihabara Fashion Week, then a look into 5okai, the shop that is leading the way in the future of Akihabara fashion, but if that represents where we are going, where are we right now in terms of Japanese fashion with Akihabara influences? The answer came to me rather abruptly on our travels in Shibuya when we were quite literally grabbed and taken into a new vintage shop that has just opened this month in the same building as Wagado in Shibuya.
As the [...]
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The last time I saw SASQUATCHfabrix (the second most ridiculous name in Japanese fashion) it was at Versus Tokyo when they had a selection of their S/S 2012 paraded around the Tokyo Midtown area by a team of performing guerrilla clowns (the second most ridiculous show of JFW) as part of Versus Tokyo. I will confess it was all a bit distracting, and I didn’t really take the chance to look at the clothes, which as it turns out from looking at the 2012 collection about to hit retail, was entirely my loss.
The concept is neat, succinct, and a direct hit on one of [...]
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Japanese fashion has had a long affair with the most famous work of Lewis Carroll – “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and it has been a pleasure seeing almost every aspect of that tale expanded upon in Lolita fashion, Mori, Dolly-Kei and so on over the years. However, by these processes of endless interpretation, you can’t help but feel that somewhere the essence of the work might have been lost over the years. That is why it was such a pleasure to meet Okada, the creative director and owner of Mad Tea Party in Koenji, a man versed in English literature, who had spent time in England [...]
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Is that Isamu Katayama of Backlash wearing Roar? Yes sir it is! Oh and is that Miyavi, Teru from Glay and the actor Shogen all in a single lookbook? Once more, your eyes do not lie. Who else could gather, and I am going to take a deep breath here:
Shogen, Teru of Glay, Hiroshi Shinagawa, Ken Watabe of Un-jash, Koji Ueno of the Hiatus, Akakage the DJ , Naoyuki Hujimoto of ex BY-SEXUAL, Motokatsu Miyagami of The Mad Capsule Markets, the Samurai Guitarist that is Miyavi, and, well, I could go on, but I think you get the picture. This is a [...]
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Having recently written about Akihabara Fashion Week and the new Akihabara fashion boutique 5okai (probably a good idea to read those two before you proceed) it occurred to me that it might be worth discussing the origins for this new kind of fashion for those on the periphery of Akiba / Otaku culture. After all, this can be something of a closed book to those interested in fashion who have long removed themselves from anything deemed “uncool” or indeed people who are purely concerned with Japanese fashion in isolation and don’t really require the cultural context. Either way, I think it is a really interesting topic and it [...]
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Common Sleeve is literally the best idea in underground Japanese fashion right now, I wrote about the A/W 2011 collection an age ago here, but it is with this latest collection that the concept seems to be coming together. For those unfamiliar with the concept, under the direction of Yeah Right!! it takes the brightest lights in the Japanese street fashion scene including Christian Dada, Hiro, Juvenile Hall Rollcall, Potto, Stof, Hisui, Bodysong and Children of Discordance and has them create outerwear with universally swappable sleeves. So you can create your own jacket with any combination of the above brands, they all fit together nicely and [...]
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Every now and then, Japanese fashion feels like it is on the verge of firing out a new trend, tribe or culture, more often than not these just don’t quite seem to capture the feel of the moment and disappear back into the neon. But sometimes… Yes, sometimes they get momentum, events fall into place, the right magazine writes about it at the right time and suddenly thing start moving – and in Tokyo they move fast. Now comes news that at long last the group of Japanese creators that includes Balmung, runurunu, Bodysong, Hatora, Veveropparuuu, Chloma, Jenny Fax and her husband Mikio Sakabe, as well [...]
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The greatest realization you will ever have in Tokyo, is that there will always be more to see. Just when you think you have got a handle on the trends of the moment, the movements of the past and the shape of what is imminent, you be walking down a road you have been a hundred times before when you spot a cafe in a basement or an isolated boutique perched in a tent on the roof (I speak from personal experience). The reason being that these kind of places are entirely self-contained, and have no real need to promote themselves beyond the devoted clientele that the vast, [...]
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In a continuation of this menswear kick I have been on recently (last roundup here), I thought I would showcase another collection that has just hit the shops in Tokyo. Now I do have an excuse for not getting this out sooner as Diet Butcher Slim Skin don’t really push their stuff out to the press until it is pretty much imminently available to buy, but compensate instead with a steady stream of special editions, collaborations and mini-collections throughout the year that ensures that they are never too far from magazine coverage. Anyway, the core S/S 2012 collection was recently previewed in Isetan Mens in Shinjuku, with an [...]
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The last time I talked about Undercover they were going layering crazy in their S/S 2012, a collection that has to be seen in the flesh to be believed. For while there are some basic items, the faux layered jackets and jeans feature truly baffling construction that seems to have passed most people by. But I digress, this time we shall be previewing their capsule collection for the lords of fast-fashion Uniqlo as well as their brilliant shoot with Huge Magazine and the legendary Thom Yorke.
First up is the Uniqlo collaboration that goes appropriately by the name of “Family” and features [...]
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In the interests of clearing the backlog of Tokyo Fashion Week S/S 2012 collections that are threatening the structural integrity of my desk I thought I might try and cover a couple in a short burst as it were, grouping together a couple of disperate collections to try and find a common thread between them that unites them under the umbrella of “Japanese menswear now”. And “now” is the operative word, as many of these collections are set to hit retail in the next couple of days or by the end of February by the latest.
First up we have STOF with their S/S 2012 [...]
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So far in our vintage fashion odyssey here at Tokyo Telephone we have been neglecting the darker side of vintage fashion, so we thought we would remedy that with a good look at the ultimate destination for the crust of Tokyo, horror punk aficionados and anyone who basically wants their fashion to be a light-hearted middle-finger to society. Kuro-Benz, ironically named after the Mercedes-Benz owning club of conservative kachigumi types purring around Ginza, is a vintage fashion institution responsible for dressing at least one person in each issue of Tune magazine in a mix of scummy colours, worn fabrics and confrontational artwork. It is the perfect anecdote [...]
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