There’s been a lot of talk in fashion lately about designers doing away with lofty abstract concepts and putting more focus on the direct on the clothes, but Stein’s Kiichiro Asakawa is the real deal. Ask the self-taught designer a trite question about his inspiration, and he’ll fire back with an almost mathematical description of how each individual garment was created, explaining in detail how double-faced cashmere blazers were made exceptionally thin by hand. by sewing each side together, or providing an overview of how he incorporated invisible magnetic closures to eliminate the hassle of buttons. He’s not stupid; his love for fashion simply comes from the garments themselves, and his work at Stein is an attempt to reinvent wardrobe staples exactly as he thinks they should be.
“I want to make things just right,” the 37-year-old explained in a giant underground showroom in Tokyo, as he quietly browsed through the whopping 300 items (including several colorways) he and his small design team had created for fall . Sometimes his quest for perfection came close: jackets are Stein’s USP, and the maxi-length trenches – sometimes laced with leather cords, or folded in half to create the illusion of extra layers – were undeniable, the kind of thing you could shrug at pick it up without thinking and immediately feel elegant.
This season, Asakawa had opted for a more intuitive approach: “following more directly what I liked,” as he put it. This produced a fresh sensuality that was expressed in V-neck sweaters that reached to the sternum and beyond, and in some excellent flowy trousers with side slits that showed skin as they moved, but otherwise remained undetectable.
Also new were the shearling coats that added some shine to the mix. Lavishly refined, they made for a compelling marriage of quiet luxury and the mafia woman’s aesthetic. Asakawa had never heard of the current viral TikTok trend – the Carmela Soprano look isn’t big in Japan – but was happy to know that his designs could capture the imagination.
The brand created the lookbook for the collection in Paris – an increasingly popular move for Tokyo designers looking to expand their appeal abroad, which Stein continues to do better (it has doubled its international stock to 30 accounts this season alone) – but the white dado wall/parquet floor setting was something we’ve seen before. If Stein can bring the same laser focus to the finicky optics as its jackets, it could well become the brand to beat.
