When it comes to writing, and most importantly writing about highly subjective areas such as fashion, art or culture, many eyes can witness the same, but how words describe it will always differ, with variables that go from the pre-existing opinions we have, our personal taste, if we were in the right mood or if we were there in person or a screen away from what was being presented. However, if I used the words “Japanese fashion is in a league of its own”, I am almost positive disagreeing would be impossible. A statement we believed as true without even stepping foot in the country became more evident and more real with each passing day of the Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo, being there, seeing with our own eyes why this city and its culture are talked about as they are, and registering with our own senses how a place where fashion is still loved for what it is feels.
Celebrating twenty years, Tokyo and Japan’s most important fashion event becomes one more season, the heart of the everpresent, everlasting and everchanging love and care for garments, construction, deconstruction and aesthetics in a country where the outside and the inside are just as important. 'What does this mean in this context?' you would ask. Well, fashion and how we dress is a reflection of our inside; it is a mirror to what happens in our brains and our hearts, but this image that should be transparent and loyal is often tainted by the outside, influenced and changed by others, and reshaped into something far from us. In Japan it feels as if there was a resistance to letting one's unicity go; the designers and the creators all seem to try their hardest to present something honest, and this honesty is translated into the consumer, being the reason why everyone’s personal style seems to be so unique, authentic, and, surprise, personal.
Housing this spirit, Shibuya, the heart of Tokyo, becomes the heart of fashion as well, with the immense Hikarie building standing as the core for half of the shows and runways, sharing the spotlight with other locations all across the city, allowing us to discover the different faces and sides of one of fashion's biggest capitals. With the legacy of some of the most important, influential and respected names in the industry at their backs, each season presents us with the proposals of the newer generations of Japanese designers, with a perfect blend of renowned and esteemed brands, young creators that are already recognised as the new era, up-and-coming names gearing up to become the next big thing or international proposals that give a wider context to the event.
During the six-day fashion experience, long enough to make us completely dive into their world and fully understand the vibe from the inside with calm and ease, the fashion shows were accompanied by many other events starting with the opening ceremony that also worked as a celebration for the twenty-year anniversary of the Japan Fashion Week Organisation, or JFWO, and the designers and names that have been part of this journey. During the highly attended event, with names like respected designer Tsumori Chisato, who also celebrated her 35th anniversary this season, and the ambassador for this season’s fashion week, renowned actor Hio Miyazawa, the Grand Prix winner of the JFW Next Brand Award 2026 was presented. Yuka Kimura, founder of Mukcyen, a young brand that has already found its place in the industry, received the recognition, anticipating her fashion week debut, opening the event just a few days later.
With a focus on making space for initiatives made to further the depth that a fashion week can reach, encouraging, supporting and celebrating the ones who deserve it, this was not the only award or prize given during the week. The Fashion Prize of Tokyo 2026, an award granted to a brand with an already steady ground and projection to become a representative of Japanese fashion to the world, was given to Norio Terada and his brand YOKE, who with the support of the organisation will present his next collections during Paris Fashion Week in March and June of 2026.
With a similar focus on exporting the talent and the vision of the local scene, the Tokyo Fashion Awards announced their lineup of designers who will be supported for two years now, also making part of the JFW showroom during Paris Fashion Week as well as the newly added popup shop at 10 Corso Como Seoul. The Tokyo Fashion Award 2026 men’s winners are Anthem A, kotohayokozawa, Matsufuji and Kiminori Morishita, while the women’s laureates are Kakan, Mukcyen, Yohei Ohno and Yusho Kobayashi. With Soshiotsuki having just won the LVMH Prize, it is made evident how all support and recognition is a step in the right direction.
This effort for backing up and helping their local talent grow starts from the early stages, with a space given to the future of fashion, the students, to present their creations and give the audience an insight into how the young minds see the state of the current world and what kind of language they use to translate it into garments. With this, the students of the Marronnier Fashion Design College, located in Osaka, presented one look each, ranging from lolita or cosplay-inspired looks to highly avant-garde pieces, all a loyal reflection of the Japanese sensibility that is present no matter the age.
Another initiative to further the impact of the fashion week is the inclusion of shows and brands from different countries, establishing cultural bridges between Japan and places like the Philippines with the Bench Design Awards 2025 or MODE x TYO by Manila Fashion Forward, bringing local brands into the Japanese runways. The space given to Global Fashion Collective gave us a taste of the proposals of nine national and international brands like Noname, Tang Tsung Chien, A-Jane, and Salim during their two runway shows, and the addition to the calendar of names like the Thai WISHARAWISH or the Chinese Yueqi Qi gave us the chance to travel around the world and see what fashion stories they have to share with us without moving from Tokyo.
As for the official calendar of Japanese brands, there are many highlights. From impressive venues to compelling performances and unique settings that made fashion feel not as a distant discipline reserved only for a few but rather as a way of self-expression present in our daily lives we are all part of, all the collections showed a different side of Japan we are eager to share in our upcoming show review article. What we can say in the meantime is that in Tokyo, fashion is understood and lived as it should; there's passion, there's care and there's fun, and to back this up, there's talent, there's effort and there's support. Throughout the years, this formula is what has made Japan a reliable source of the best of the best. We knew that seeing it from a distance, but now that we have the chance to be part of it, there’s no doubt that here lives the past, the present and the future of fashion.
