CFCL is slowly growing into the men’s market. “We’ve been focusing on the CFCL customer and trying to make things that are more mature,” Yusuke Takahashi commented during a video call from Tokyo. “Women’s wear is more dramatic and men’s is more practical, so we’re trying to establish a stronger attitude for him, keeping it authentic but also connecting with a younger consumer.”
For pre-fall, that meant leaning into relaxed, ample silhouettes with minimal seams, like a double-breasted jacket the designer described as the perfect piece to instantly elevate a look to office appropriate. Though recycled polyester is CFCL’s signature material, he noted that he’s obsessing over developing in a way that more closely mimics the look and feel of natural ones. Two examples here: a mottled gray funnel-neck coat and a caramel cardigan with tiers of ribbing on the sleeves. A finely ribbed hoodie looked like it might connect with that younger customer.
And while polyester takes to brights, next season the brand is sticking with a muted palette—beige, brown, olive, navy, black—with the occasional pop of terracotta or teal peeking out from an inverted pleat. “We want to make sure that everything goes together,” the designer offered.
For the second chapter of its collaboration with Veja, CFCL last week introduced a new version of the V-90—the brand’s tech-oriented retro runner—inspired by the clean, architectural lines of Shinjuku. With this, too, Takahashi explained that his idea was to take a casual favorite and elevate it to “almost like leather” to work well in a concrete jungle.
Speaking of urban settings, CFCL this month is packing up and moving into a new factory set-up in the Saitama prefecture. The extra floor space—nearly 11,000 square feet—will give the designer and his team flexibility to ramp up exponentially virtually overnight. From the current three machines in the knitting lab, the company will scale to 42, a production capacity of nearly 240 pieces per day. Crucially, that opens up room enough to experiment until CFCL hits on a men’s wear equivalent of its bestselling ‘pottery’ dress. “It’s challenging but exciting,” the designer allowed. Stay tuned.
