Kanako Sakai had no plans to do a runway show this season, not to mention opening the Tokyo Fashion Week schedule. Just two years into her label, it was way too early for a show, she said, but after winning the 2024 JFW Next Brand Award (which funds two shows for the winner) in June, she was persuaded to prepare within two months . Smiling anxiously when she came out to talk to reporters afterwards, her first words were, “How was it?”
The most important thing to know about Sakai is her talent for innovative textiles, which she travels all over Japan to find and create. For example, the last two looks of this collection featured iridescent fabrics that Sakai had woven from crushed shells in a technique known as guess-ori. It is inspired by a childhood memory: “When I was in primary school, I made mother-of-pearl inlays for my summer homework and I loved it. Then recently I heard about shells that come from the Sea of Japan in Tango, Kyoto. Previous generations used them to make textiles, because they wanted to take the charm of the sea from their hometown and turn it into a fabric,” she explains.
Sakai puts her identity as a Japanese citizen at the forefront of her work, and this produces unique results; particularly impressive were the hexagonal patterns of silver sequins, inspired by kamon or samurai family crests, that glittered like armor on tops and skirts. Elsewhere, the tank tops spilled over into fringed flapper dresses shimmering in intense blue or silvery gold, while pink lace peeked out from beneath the smooth-cut tailoring.
As fresh as the colors were the mold; Kanoko Sakai is a women’s clothing brand, but half of the models she used this time were male. “Instead of the image of a woman, there is a human image,” she said, adding that her male friends often buy clothes for her. “I thought about using about three male models, but the casting department sent me 150 people, and after I set the criteria to just look good and be cool, half of them turned out to be male models.” It worked well and appeals to the forward-thinking designer that Sakai clearly is.
How was it? In a word: promising. A few more notes: It’s not often you see a debut show as well-executed and confident as this one. Sakai had chosen the word “welcome” as their theme, “as a way to let everyone know the spirit and attitude of the brand.” That spirit came right out the door swinging and started the season in Tokyo with a bang.
