As the dust settles on men’s fashion month, an afterglow clings to Satoshi Kuwata’s Setchu Autumn/Winter 2025 show, which scores of buyers and press note as a season highlight. Taking the guest designer slot for Pitti Uomo, the Japanese LVMH Prize winner presented a visual experiment in classicism, panelling and splicing tailcoats and Savile Row suiting for a collection at once simple and compellingly avant-garde — a trope that, in an increasingly tricky economic climate, may become essential.
“Our clients are tired of seeing the same products everywhere — they want something special,” says Kuwata, whose clothes are relatively (although duly) expensive, retailing from €250 to €3,500. “I’ve never tried to create expensive products,” he adds. “It just happens that they have certain prices.”
The men’s fashion month calendar has been shrinking since the late 2010s. London Fashion Week Men’s stopped in 2017, with Burberry having shown co-ed since 2016. As for Milan, Gucci, Fendi and JW Anderson didn’t show this season, while New York currently only has a single menswear day, presented biannually. With fewer initiatives available for menswear — Fashion East Man shuttered in 2019, too — and a worldwide luxury fashion slump, a merge-and-mix approach has subsumed a lot of the West’s menswear output.
From a zoomed-out lens, personal luxury goods have shown a decrease in market share for the first time in 15 years — bar, of course, during the Covid period when spending dropped incrementally — according to Bain Co. Exacerbated by volatile markets and inflation, many conglomerate-owned labels have hiked prices, leading to a consumer base contraction of some 50 million people in 2024 and a profitability dip among brands. If there was one phrase that defined boardroom conversations across fashion house C-suites last financial year, it was the luxury slowdown, aka the inverse to post-lockdown’s revenge spending.
The curveball was Japan, which witnessed the world’s fastest growth in luxury sales over the past year, as well as mid-single-digit growth in menswear from 2019 to 2023, continuing an upward trajectory into 2024. “Despite a noted global slowdown in the luxury market in 2024, Japanese menswear has performed strongly,” confirms Bain senior partner Federica Levato. “Japan’s menswear market demonstrates unique strengths that contribute to its resilience and growth,” she adds, citing a “seamless integration of tradition and innovation”, “functional aesthetics”, “highly localised yet globally appealing collections”, “quality” and “meticulous attention to detail”.
On the ground, a broad malaise can be felt among industry bods who believe that major Western players are losing their edge. “What we are finding in the market at present is a lot of indecision, a lot of following and too much emphasis on elevating without a clear purpose,” says Reece Crisp, buying and creative director of London concept store LN-CC. “What Japanese brands do is stay true to their identity, lead with their direction and focus on developing the best product with value as a key consideration.”
Mason Moore, senior buyer at concept store Goodhood, shares a similar sentiment: “When the market becomes challenging, Western brands often tighten their budgets, resulting in smaller collections and a noticeable retreat from creativity and innovation. However, Japanese brands consistently stand out as an exception.” Part of this stability lies in strong links to a thriving domestic manufacturing industry and a national culture that prizes craft and understands shopping more as a hobby than a necessity. From Moore’s perspective, budgets have not tightened across Japanese brands. “Their economy is resilient, and there isn’t a race to the bottom like in the West.” There’s also the influx of tourists flocking to Japan to reap the benefits of a favourable yen.
Certainly, Japanese menswear has long been hallowed as the pinnacle of quality — largely manufacturing in Japan — and the bleeding edge of design, even when it’s ostensibly understated. Consider the recent Junya Watanabe show: a magnified take on traditional lumberjack and hunting designs from collaborator Filson, an outdoor US heritage label popular among loggers and ranchers. At first glance, nothing mind-bending at play; but upon closer inspection, wrought patchworking, knee reinforcements and just-so pocket placements that make it capital-F fashion.
The same could be said of Chitose Abe’s Sacai offering, where from afar, what appeared like modular menswear templates soon revealed themselves to be intensely worked — double-lapelled, feathered or constructed from umpteen different swatches — designs, complete with an inevitably commercial Carhartt WIP collaboration. “Sacai has always been based on the balance of creativity and wearability,” explains Abe. “We are true to what we believe. At the same time, we listen to our team and are able to have the best knowledge of what the market expects from us.”
These are promising words, highlighting a long-established skill that was largely pioneered by Comme des Garçons, where Watanabe and Abe learnt the ropes as pattern-cutters. Headed up by designer Rei Kawakubo and business renegade Adrian Joffe, Comme des Garçons is often cited as a case study for the perfect art-business equilibrium. “I think Joffe has led the way,” says creative branding consultant Richard Gray. “If you look at something as difficult to wear as Comme des Garçons Homme Plus, there aren’t that many customers for it.” So, how do you protect the mothership? “You look at things like the labels within the Comme des Garçons umbrella.” This includes Shirt (a shirting focused-line), Homme Deux (tailoring), Play (democratic, heart-branded streetwear), CDG (bold, graphic-focused spell-outs)… The list goes on. “There’s a touch of the irreverent in everything they do, from Play to Shirt,” affirms Gray.
Consistency and quality
This winged yet tightly integrated approach was also testified to by Paris newcomer IM Men, another Issey Miyake offshoot. The collection — conceived by head designers Sen Kawahara, Yuki Itakura and Nobutaka Kobayashi — centred around the late Miyake’s principle that “a piece of cloth” is ample to design a garment, evidencing that philosophy in a satellite exhibition featuring key garments hung on their own like curtains and in varied states of dress on mannequins. “One thing that hasn’t changed since the beginning is that we always try to come up with a product that is practical but also has its own beauty,” explains design and engineering expert Kawahara.
After launching in 2021 and selling domestically, the IM Men label has gone global, respecting (rather than seeking to totally reset) foundational wider house codes. “I think that the ongoing appeal of Japanese labels lies in the consistency of the product,” notes fashion critic Mark C O’Flaherty. “Miyake passed away [in 2022], but it still looks interchangeable with the Miyake I was buying in the ’80s.”
Beyond the runway, cult Japanese lifestyle label Beams Plus has built a worldwide following off the back of its finessed take on Americana. “It’s always based on a triangle: classic style, unique fabric and another essence — such as an inspiration I got when designing,” says Beams Plus director Hideki ‘Harry’ Mizobata. Inside the AW25 showroom were some 300 styles and 800 SKUs (stock-keeping units). The company doesn’t share revenues, but according to Mizobata, wholesale is doing “great” and relationships with buyers are strong but the company is refraining from expanding stockists this moment, focusing on building communities around the world with Stateside pop-ups.
The clothes, often made in Japan to a high-spec, have a price point that’s dependent on a specific design’s cost price. Mizobata notes that a shirt could retail at €200 or €500, depending on production or fabrication, where other retailers might price according to merchandise category alone. Of course, it’s this honesty that has long been amiss in Western luxury, where price points are upped and set as part of a positioning exercise. Loyalty, for Beams Plus, is earned, not marketed. “The motto behind the brand is, ‘We’re not for everyone’, which means, we like to be purchased by someone who really likes the concept,” Mizobata adds.
“I don’t think about the global business and industry. However, I trust my intuition,” Yohji Yamamoto tells Vogue Business. “I try to think about what my customer would want or need and maybe this is how to stay relevant. Business is not the goal, but it can be the result.” Across the board, integrity is a throughline. Garments can be as wild or as pared back as they need to be, but ultimately, it’s that extra special quality — the undulating grain of an Undercover boiled wool jacket or the down linen in a Yohji Yamamoto blazer — that ensnares customers.
At present, the penchant for Japanese menswear looks strong, with forecasted growth. “In the future, we expect that Japanese designers will continue to set trends and have a major influence on menswear globally due to demographic shifts and social media influence,” says Marguerite Le Rolland, head of footwear and apparel for market research firm Euromonitor.
For the sake of menswear at large, let’s hope Japanese designers rise to the challenge, maintaining the winning assets — craft, quality, flourish — that push shoppers to transact.
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