Menswear was, as usual, relegated to the back seat in the recent Tokyo collections, and only a handful of designers showed any. Given the quality of male models used on the runways, however, this was probably in the designers' best interests.

At Comme Ca, for example, one guy looked as if he was suffering from serious back problems, and at Irregular by Alfredo Bannister a middle-aged foreign model appeared onstage with glazed eyes and a definite drunken demeanor. As for local tarento Dave Spector's performance at Yuki Torii Homme . . . the less said, the better.

Fortunately, the clothes were a different story.

Lad Musician was very street-friendly with knee-length shorts in wood grain-patterned polyester-cotton, photo-print jogging sets with aerial shots of the Glastonbury music festival and some arty-looking computer-enhanced photos of spider webs which Yuichi Kuroda used on cotton short-sleeved summer shirts.

Nothing startling at this fast-paced show but the setting, in a Japanese-style reception room at Happo-en, was undoubtedly the best location.

At Hanae Mori Monsieur the clothes were tasteful and simple, and the lone male model surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women wasn't bad either!

After the show, Madame Mori observed that in the new century clothes are set to become unisex, with the same fabrics designers use for women's wear also used for men's clothing.

This was how she presented her menswear: lightweight, breezy, blue polyester Mao-collared jackets in botan ni wachigai print (peony flowers and white interlocking geometric circles, an old-style Japanese pattern), slinky snake-print shirts and a zipped, slightly iridescent stand-collar jacket in royal blue -- masculine versions of her pret-a-couture line.

Two shirts demanded attention: one, an evening shirt in sexy, opaque-white organza, was oversized and open to the chest, and the other was an eye-catching long-sleeved shirt in a red, yellow, blue and black art print, which she paired with leather pants and a brick-red casual jacket.

Irregular by Alfredo Bannister might sound like a line by a foreign designer but it is, in fact, designed by Hiromu Takahara. Sending out jeans, jackets, shirts and blazers in "paint splashed" cream cotton, Takahara's show was more an exercise in what you can do with one kind of fabric.

While the clothes were nothing to write home about, the footwear was: some great cowboy boots with wooden heels and soles, and several sporty pairs as well, all served up on silver trays by shoe waiters!

Capitol Hill Product was a rather mediocre line in which Tei Jojima managed to be both retrospective and futuristic within the same 15-minute time zone. Retrospective in that many pieces were reminiscent of the '60s -- think space exploration themes or Cardin-style high-collared spatial smock tops and side-buttoned jackets -- and futuristic in their employment of modern textiles.

Hideaki Nishitaka, a relative unknown, presented his Shu-Mei collection at Bunka Fashion College. In an original show that emphasized quality rather than quantity (it amounted to no more than several pairs of pants and a few tops), it was his choice of textiles that grabbed attention.

Highlights included trousers with chalkstripe back and a woven ribbon front, and another pair, in see-through white pinstripe on black, which looked as if they were being worn inside out, with pockets flapping at the sides. They were worn over pale blue undertrousers.

Tops, too, were well balanced and one in particular was notable for its elegance: a black sleeveless cotton mesh vest with a high Mao-style collar and silk-linen back, worn with loose linen trousers. To this ensemble, Nishitaka added as a perfect accent a very narrow wooden belt.

Under the auspices of the Council of Fashion Designers, Tokyo, and the Federation Francaise de la Couture du Pret a Porter des Couturiers et des Createurs de Mode, the Paris Collection in Tokyo showcased 12 young designers in an all-too-short show at Odaiba.

The talent was there, but with a dozen designers vying for runway space in such a short period of time, only a capsule of their work could be presented -- each designer's models just about had time to do a once up and once down the catwalk, and then they were gone.

Still, the three Tokyo-based Japanese in the event, Yoichi Nagasawa, Keita Maruyama and Yoshiki Hishinuma, all made their mark -- Nagasawa with his fine layered pieces and delicate silver tapestry-print fabrics, Maruyama for his tropical styles and Hishinuma for his patchwork-and-embroidery dresses.

Paris-based Shinichi Arakawa's innovative red double-layered jackets and coats were well tailored, but a word of advice: Don't try to put them on while drunk as each one has four sleeves!

You don't have to look very far to see where Limi Yamamoto gets her influence from. She may not be very well known yet, but she's a blue-blooded girl -- her father is none other than Yohji Yamamoto.

The excessive use of funereal-style black and a preponderance of loose, billowing dresses and trousers appears to run in the family. And, like her father, she intersperses these somber pieces with color: a bright-red smock dress, geometric patterned cotton printed tops and colorful floral printed skirts.

Masafumi Yoshikawa chose the theme of wa for his Y+contact collection. It was one of the final shows of the season but, as it turned out, it was also one of the best. He sent out a very tasteful blend of East and West -- bold goldfish motifs on cropped white tops or wrapped full-length skirts, and in another variation, goldfish swimming beneath a stream of ascending bubbles and a single strand of waterweed wafting languidly in the cool water.

Other highlights were brilliant red hanko marks on black hakama pants, washi pockets on white jeans, red "lacquered" skirts and three-layer iridescent deconstructed jackets in blue-pink organdy.

The three young Hong Kong designers showing in the Hong Kong Trade Development Council-sponsored show -- Barney Cheng, Vicky Lam and Joanna Chu-liao -- presented a mixed package that ranged across the board with couture, pret-a-porter and casual.

The best pieces were Cheng's beaded and sequined chiffon sheath which he draped over a pale-green skirt or his floral-print chiffon tops (pieces he calls "couture-a-porter"), Lam's vivid floral skirts and Chu's flower-and-starburst dresses or smart pastel suede garments.

Chu, who comes from a family with ties to the fashion industry (her father owns a medium-size garment manufacturing concern in Hong Kong), sells in Japan at Imperial Plaza in Osaka, and seven locations in Tokyo, including her own boutique at Venus Fort in Odaiba.

Cheng told me that this was his first fashion show in Japan, and that he has found the Japanese to be "very receptive to new designers." He clearly has his eyes on expanding in the Japanese market in the new millennium -- where he is already selling at Barney's New York in Tokyo and Bianca Brilliante in Kumamoto.