Kanako Sakai hadn’t supposed to do a runway present this season, to say nothing of opening the Tokyo Trend Week schedule. Solely two years into her label, it was a lot too early for a present, she mentioned, however after profitable the JFW Subsequent Model Award 2024 in June (which funds two reveals for the winner), she was coaxed into it with solely two months to organize. Smiling anxiously as she got here out to talk to reporters afterwards, her first phrases have been “How was it?”
The vital factor to learn about Sakai is her knack for modern textiles, which she travels the size and breadth of Japan to supply and create. The final two appears to be like of this assortment, as an example, featured iridescent materials Sakai had woven from crushed seashells in a method generally known as raden-ori. It was impressed by a childhood reminiscence: “After I was in elementary college, I did mother-of-pearl inlay for my summer season homework and I believed it was stunning. Then not too long ago I discovered about shells which might be from the Sea of Japan in Tango, Kyoto. Earlier generations used them to make textiles as a result of they needed to take the attraction of the ocean from their hometown and make it into a cloth,” she defined.
Sakai places her identification as a Japanese citizen on the forefront of her work, and this yields some distinctive outcomes; significantly spectacular have been the hexagonal patterns of silver sequins, impressed by kamon, or samurai household crests, that glinted like armor on tops and skirts. Elsewhere, tank tops descended into fringed flapper attire that swished in intense blue or silvery gold, whereas pink lace peeked out from beneath easily slashed tailoring.
As contemporary as the colours was the casting; Kanoko Sakai is a womenswear model, however half of the fashions she used this time have been male. “Relatively than a lady’s picture, there’s a human picture,” she mentioned, including that her male pals typically purchase her garments. “I used to be pondering of utilizing about three males’s fashions, however the casting division despatched me 150 individuals, and after utilizing the standards of merely trying good and being cool, half of them ended up being male fashions.” It labored properly, and speaks to the forward-thinking designer that Sakai clearly is.
So, how was it? In a phrase: promising. In a couple of extra: You don’t typically see a debut runway present as well-executed and assured as this one. Sakai had chosen the phrase “welcome” as her theme, “as a approach to let everybody know the spirit and angle of the model.” That spirit got here straight out of the door swinging, and kicked off the Tokyo season with a bang.
