Mikio Sakabe knows how to draw a crowd. Showing on the official Tokyo Fashion Week calendar for the first time in over three years, the designer staged a comeback in the vast Yoyogi National Gymnasium. The show was open to the public (Sakabe has many fans), and some 4,000 people queued in a seemingly endless line outside before filing into the stands to see what the designer would show this time. Those of us on the front row sat in a line on the floor, in blasting distance of the machines that hissed puffs of smoke onto the runway, but—at least from this writer’s perspective—we felt like the lucky few.
Sakabe is a cerebral designer who thinks deeply about fashion as a product as much as he considers its emotional and societal value. He had been feeling lately that fashion has fallen in love with fantasy and narrative again, and it gave him a sense of freedom: “I felt that it was the right time to tell more of a story,” he said.
To do so, he referenced historical dress from the 1800s (see the white and cream dresses with puffy sleeves, and the various frills), but jolted them into the future by adding skintight polyester jerseys and metallics. He also used a flocking technique to intentionally add what looked like caked-on dust to the shoulders of tailored jackets, so that they seemed as if they’d been hung up in a room for centuries. The overall idea was to put past and future together to create an anachronistic dissonance. His futuristic footwear brand, Grounds (which he runs alongside his main brand, to commercial success), provided the shoes; their instantly clockable bubble soles are a common sight on Harajuku cool kids.
The models all had their faces covered with hair to obscure their identities in order for viewers to focus more on the clothes, explained Sakabe. And the stadium location had been chosen to “show what fashion is like from a bird’s-eye view, rather than just looking at the clothes worn by each person.”
It’s worth knowing that the 47-year-old is not only a designer but also a teacher and mentor who spends much of his time nurturing Tokyo’s budding fashion talents. Alongside his fashion business, he also runs ME School, founded in 2019, which trains young designers in both creativity and business know-how. Many of his students were in the stands tonight to see the show, and a giant screen in the center of the hall broadcast everything as it happened, so that everyone, no matter how far back they were sitting, had a chance to share in the details.
When the smoke had cleared, Sakabe had some teacherly wisdom to share: “A good fashion show isn’t just about generating an appetite for clothes; it’s about showing a new image of people, and imagining what might be for the next generation.” Class dismissed.
