Christian Dada designer Masanori Morikawa's departure from Tokyo to show at Paris Fashion Week this season created an opportunity for a new headline act to emerge from the sidelines and seize the reins at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo.
All eyes were on design house Mr.Gentleman from Takeshi Osumi and Yuichi Yoshii, the name behind the menswear-focused "Versus Tokyo" series of events on the final day of the official week. There were flashes of progressive design in the form of all-in-one jumpsuits made from splicing a T-shirt and shorts together, and the subdued tone of the authoritatively designed basics that dominated the collection gave way to a modest show that would have looked at home on the catwalks of Milan, not least due to the romantic photographic images of the Italian Riviera that stood out among the otherwise color-blocked restraint.
While lacking in bombastic presentation, yet accurately representing both the taste of the male attendees and enduring street level trends, remixed-vintage fashion shows proved popular among the home crowd. Yasuko Furata's menswear label Toga Virilis deftly weaves Mexican and authentic '90s streetwear design into a cohesive whole, which attracted keen crowds who were, in turn, rewarded with a performance from experimental rock outfit Dirty Beaches. In line with one of the most unexpected global trends to come out of the West Coast hip-hop world, Toga Virilis' models wore high sports socks with sandals, perhaps turning one of style's oldest faux pas into a Tokyo trend for next spring and summer. Along similar lines, Discovered from Tatsuya Kimura and Sanae Yoshida not only braved the middle-aged socks and sandals taboo, but also took their calls from the vintage fashion scene in Tokyo with a tightly edited mix of military styles rendered in heritage fabrics such as houndstooth.