Calls to rebrand fashion week

• Author:zita
• Source:www.seaartrhinestone.com/
• Release on :2016-11-07

Tokyo may be the style capital of Asia, but with South Korea and China snapping at its heels and Japan's most iconic brands rooted in Europe, the city is being urged to haul its fashion week into the big leagues.

Tokyo Fashion Week kicked off its spring/summer 2017 season showcase earlier this month with six days of events intended to promote 50 brands, a mixture of the established and the new.

Yet Japanese labels that are household names in the West-led by Kenzo, YohjiYamamoto, Issey Miyake and Comme des Garcons－eschew home shores for the bright lights, prestige and visibility of Paris.

Tokyo Fashion Week attracts only 50,000 visitors just a quarter of the number that attend the New York event, and also lagging behind London, Paris and Milan.

Held after the fashion merry-go-round exhausts the "big four," few make the extra trip to Tokyo, and not many in Japan believe they are missing out.

According to a poll by Fashionsnap.com, only 20 per-cent of the Japanese fashion industry, including designers, stylists and editors consider Tokyo's events to be of interest.

The award-winning Milan-based Turkish designer Umit Benan wants to change all that.

"Everyone needs to get together to make the Japanese fashion week much better," the menswear designer told reporters after making his Tokyo debut, having announced he would ditch the Paris fashion week

"I think you really need to focus on your own fashion week, trying to create new waves in Japan fashion," he says.

While Tokyo has long been a springboard for up-and-coming designers, neighboring Seoul, with its vibrant street style, and Shanghai, as the commercial capital of China, are attracting increased interest.

"To me, Tokyo is the Asian fashion center with long fashion-forward history," says HongKong designer VickieAu who brought her "urban chill" collection to Tokyo after showing in NewYork.

Au cited Yamamoto, the famed Japanese designer based in Paris, as an inspiration, praising him as a master of "modern and avant-garde tailoring".

US retailing giant Amazon is sponsoring Tokyo Fashion Week for the first time, and among the fashion set in Japan there are hopes that it can help rebrand the event into something brighter and larger.