Japanese Fashion Hits Berlin Runway

Source From: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304584404576437952454422910.html

Berlin's Fashion Week, traditionally a showcase for Continental styles, was abuzz this year over the designers from a country on the other side of the world: Japan.

Seven designers whose own collections were left without a forum after Japan Fashion Week was canceled in April showed their collections on Saturday in a hastily organized show that offered an unexpected opportunity for them to show off their designs to a European audience.

Japanese styles often are lauded in the fashion world and for years have helped set the standard for hipster trends. But many designers have struggled with the geographic and financial challenges of presenting their collections in Europe, remaining insulated within the Asian market.

When the earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit Fukushima prefecture in March, affecting the northeastern region where most of the collections are produced, it initially appeared that the carefully cultivated Asian market also could be at risk.

"People were telling us we should stop designing, that how we make our living wasn't serious enough," said Shun Nakagawa of the hipster label Banal Chic Bizarre.

The small factory where the 27-year-old designer produced many of his sample designs was under piles of rubble in northeastern Miyagi prefecture, and it took him weeks to contact the family that sewed his collection, he said.

Mr. Nakagawa and his design team then found themselves in the position most Japanese designers now face: their livelihoods damaged amid electricity outages, production problems and a collective society emphasizing abstention from anything deemed frivolous, like fashion.

The chance to present in Berlin free provided Mr. Nakagawa and other designers an unexpected opportunity. About 30 Japanese designers were given free space at Premium, a local trade show, to promote their labels to European buyers. Modeling agencies donated use of their talent.

At the separate runway show Saturday, models walked a horseshoe-shaped stage in front of a circular projection screen flashing images of orange cherry trees, animated Tokyo cityscapes and black-and-white geisha footage.

The six clothing designers presented men's and women's wear, with a seventh designer showing leather accessories.

Banal Chic Bizarre featured a dress with preppy and funky hipster elements. A full, cream ballerina skirt of stiff cotton was below large breast pockets hooked closed with chunky plastic clasps. A thick cream cord laced up the dress's faded green back.

"Tokyo is that mixture of girly and hipster culture," said the 27-year-old Mr. Nakagawa backstage.

Designers hoped to present full collections, but German customs prevented delivery of most of the clothing, leaving each designer with about four complete looks. The short show was repeated twice, allowing larger numbers of visitors to watch the presentations in the small studio space.

Most labels already had finished designing their collections for April's canceled Japan Fashion Week in Tokyo when the earthquake happened in March.

But one designer, Ryujiro Tamaki, began furiously creating shirts for his label, Public Image, inspired by Fukushima as a form of therapy.

What appear as random yellow, red and magenta squares scattered across a button-down white shirt are actually part of the radiation topography surrounding Fukushima. Another of Mr. Tamaki's shirts shows a digital print of a sunny Fukushima before the earthquake, from a work by Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama.

"I hoped with that shirt to present to the Japanese people positive memories for us to share," Mr. Tamaki said.