Tokyo Fashion Week teams up with music industry to reinforce its consumer, local-oriented approach

By

Kanako NISHIO

Published
Oct 11, 2018

After the “Big Four” fashion marathon, Amazon Fashion Week Tokyo 2019 S/S will kick off Monday with 51 brands, including 20 first-time participants and 10 foreign brands, showcasing their latest collections.

Just as this season’s slogan suggests, “Don’t be ashamed of your desires,” the fifth edition of the fashion week backed by Amazon Japan is reinforcing its customer-oriented approach. This season will have more parties and events than ever, in particular in association with the music industry.
 
In addition to its aims to become “the gateway for success in the world for new designers” and “the starting point for cooperation between designers, manufacturers and apparel retailers,” Tokyo Fashion Week is now hoping to increase its global influence and to create Tokyo trends of its own.

In this context, the Japan Fashion Week Organization, governing body of the fashion week, will launch an entirely new initiative, Fuzznation, which plans to familiarize more consumers with fashion through various cross-sectional events.  For its first project, it has teamed up with entertainment company Space Shower to organize multiple performance shows from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday evening in the concert space WWW featuring emerging street brand F-Lagstuf-F and some "it" musicians popular with the local young generation. There will also be a street snap event held by fashion media company Eyescream.com.
 
Furthermore, Amazon Fashion’s At Tokyo program continues to highlight Tokyo-based brands. Six labels have been selected for this season: Anrealage, Lautashi, N.Hoolywood, Skoloct, Bed J.W. Ford, and Christian Dada. All are mixing music, technology and art to stage unique events “exploring a new possibility in fashion,” as Amazon Japan’s fashion vice president, James Peters, said in the release.
The project will be a sort of Tokyo alumni meeting of now internationally known Japanese brands. Parisian runway regular Anrealage will showcase a special collection named “A Light Un Light Collection,” while Christian Dada, which presents at Paris Men’s Fashion Week, is staging a joint show with Pitti 94 guest Bed J.W. Ford.  

Alongside these consumer events and classic runway shows, the fashion industry hasn’t failed to set aside room for industry players and designers. Two creative prizes will be awarded on the last day: Tokyo Fashion Award and Fashion Prize of Tokyo. Both awards encourage and support Japanese brands to develop internationally. Last year, for its first edition, the Fashion Prize of Tokyo was given to Mame Kurogouchi to enable the label to present its collections at Paris Fashion Week for two seasons from fall/winter 2018.
 
In terms of international participants, in addition to Shohei from Austria and Malaysia’s Nerdunit, various collective shows and presentations are on the schedule. The For Example Showroom project will present five Austrian designers, including Sagan Vienna, Jana Wieland, Sightline, Kalissi and Js by Julia Skergeth, while the Global Fashion Collective, an extension of Vancouver Fashion Week, will showcase North American and International designers’ spring/ summer 2019 collections. The Asian Fashion Meets Tokyo program will features the Philippines this time. In addition, the Paris-based trade show Man/Woman will continue its Tokyo edition from October 18 to 19 with a presentation of the participating brands.
 
JFWO’s executive director Yutaka Nakamura said, “We would like to invite more consumers to parties, events and shows to democratize the runway. Numerous events mixing music and fashion throughout will make Tokyo Fashion Week more popular.”