New project brings Japanese fashion to Europe

Japanese fashion personality Kaoru Sasaki has selected his favorite brands for a new display at Paris fashion week, hoping to create a new image for Japanese fashion and attract Western buyers.

Editor-in-chief of Japanese high-fashion magazine Commons&Sense, Sasaki thinks that most of his home country's fashion lacks creativity and message. Celebrating the launch of his TokyoEye project at the trade fair Tranoi - a joint initiative with the Japanese Ministry of Economy - Sasaki told Relaxnews: "98 to 100 percent of Japanese fashion isn't good. [...] It's just about consumption and showing off."

The Tokyo-based fashion matador, still largely unknown in the Western world, created TokyoEye to promote brands to attract buyers from outside Japan: the project mainly targets markets in France and China.

Despite the fact that to Western onlookers, Japanese fashion is largely associated with avant-garde style à la Comme des Garçons, Sasaki insisted that it was "a very small minority [of brands]" that were characterized by such fashion-forwardness - a minority that needed to be promoted abroad.

The labels he chose are meant to convey an image between "sweet" (represented, for example, by the pink and fluffy Liz Lisa label) and "mode" (e.g., the fashion-forward Aula Aila, presenting wearable but edgy pieces), he explains: "Good Japanese fashion is either about street style or high fashion, and we have selected the best brands at that."

As the main current influences on his country's fashion, Sasaki cites menswear - a trend also present in current Western collections - and the 109 department store, a place that operates like a fashion community, located in Tokyo's Shibuya district.

All brands will be on display at Tranoi during fashion week and sold at the Paris concept store Colette (colette.fr).

Here's the list of participating labels:

20,000,000 fragments, designed by Tamami Akiyama (http://www.20mf.com)
Phenomenon, designed by Takeshi Osumi (http://www.phenomenon.tv)
Aula Aila, designed by Yukimi Kawashima (http://www.aulaaila.jp)
Duck Digger (http://www.ware-house.co.jp)
DressCamp, designed by Marjan Pejoski (http://www.dresscamp.jp)
Amabro, designed by AMDA (http://www.amabro.com)
Cram Jam Chest, designed by Yusuke Noguchi (http://www.cramjamchest.com)
Malcom Guerre, designed by Yuki (http://www.malcolmguerre.com)
Design Tshirts Store Graniph (http://www.graniph.com)
Liz Lisa (http://www.lizlisa.com)
Sachio Kawasaki (http://www.sachiokawasaki.com)
ValenTine's High, designed by Yumi Ogawa (http://www.valentine-h.jp)
Galaxxxy (http://www.joe-inter.co.jp/galaxxxy)