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Tokyo Fashion Week

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Alice Auaa, Photos by Mitsugu Uehara

Tokyo fashion week’s Spring 2015 season opened last Monday in the throes of Vongfong, one of 2014’s most intense typhoons. Undeterred, Tokyo’s daringly fashionable faced the storm and headed for the runways, where the industry’s most venerable insiders were sharing the front row with punks and Lolitas in full regalia. (Hat-tip to Alice Auaa, the week’s standout “gothic couture” brand.) Subcultures are generally not as represented in Tokyo high fashion as one might think, but if über-kawaii-girlie is a subculture, then Sretsis is queen. The Thailand-based brand staged an ’80s roller-derby-inspired collection that looked as if a sticker-covered Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper had come to life. The glitter lightning-bolt jacquard jumpsuits, light-up earrings, and trompe l’oeil roller-skate boots were convincing enough to make the upcoming Jem revival movie seem as relevant as ever.

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Sretsis

DressCamp headed up the colorful, fashion-forward tribe. It presented poofy silhouettes swathed in sprinkle-covered tulle, cable-knit sweaterdresses for men, and collage prints by Japanese graffiti artist Kazzrock. The styling here was wild with a sporty vibe—Anna Dello Russo is a huge fan. She was found backstage afterward, coaxing the designer to bring it to Paris.

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Ne-Net; Dresscamp; Toga Virilis

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99%is

Tokyo’s menswear brands also gave great face, with Toga presenting her virilis line of Southwestern-cum-dandyism styles amid a concert by experimental rockabilly band Dirty Beaches. Undercover’s Jun Takahashi sat front-row to see the wildly popular young label 99%is present tropical prints and cerulean blue leather duds for its punk-heavy Black Hawaii collection.

The quirky side of Tokyo fashion week can always be seen in the Issey Miyake-backed brand Né-Net, but this time it was a calm show of wabi-sabi, paying homage to spiritual Japan with charming motifs of mythical creatures, gods, and fables. The runway was made of bamboo tatami mats, and models paid their respect by taking their shoes off before walking. It showed that although street style in Tokyo may command the most attention, there is something much deeper happening.

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