Japan’s fashion scene is having a big moment on the global stage. A surge in tourism, helped by the weak yen, has come at the same time as growing worldwide interest in Japanese fashion. Over the past ten years, the country has produced three winners of the LVMH Prize, and with recent menswear brands like Auralee and Ssstein making waves at Paris Fashion Week, more names are set to follow.

But for up-and-coming designers in Japan, turning that international attention into real success comes with plenty of challenges. What does it actually take to build a global fashion business from Japan today? Five designers share their thoughts below.

Viviano
Viviano Sue.
Photo: Courtesy of Viviano

Designer: Viviano Sue
Founded: 2014
Category: Womenswear and menswear
Background: Growing up between the US and China, Viviano Sue moved to Tokyo to study at Bunka Fashion College. His brand, which shares his name, is known for bold dresses and tailoring with a playful, dramatic flair. In 2024, he launched a menswear line. With fans like Lady Gaga, Bad Bunny, and Hudson Williams, Viviano has recently focused on breaking into Hollywood.

“Starting my own brand in Japan as a foreign designer definitely wasn’t the easiest path. I’d never worked for another fashion house before, so I didn’t have a well-known name or background that people instantly recognized. Japan is also a society where fitting in can be tough, so being a foreign designer running an independent label naturally made me something of an outsider. Still, I see things from a different angle, and I’ve always had a very international circle around me. As the brand has become more global, that has really helped.

Before taking our showroom to Paris, we felt we needed to build more international awareness, so we started working with a PR agency in LA. At first, we focused heavily on magazines and traditional fashion media, but the results were limited, so we decided to shift more attention toward dressing celebrities. That really changed things for us. What I’ve learned is that making good clothes is only part of it. You also need the right people who understand the clothes and know how to present them. And timing is everything. The right piece, the right person, and the right moment all have to come together. When they do, it can be incredibly powerful.

Viviano FW26 menswear.
Photo: Courtesy of Viviano

Celebrity dressing has driven a big increase in international traffic to our online store, as well as more overseas orders. It’s encouraging to see that some of that visibility is already turning into real customer interest. The next step is to expand our international wholesale accounts while also strengthening our direct-to-consumer business by making the shopping experience better and easier for international customers.

Our sales are roughly 40% menswear and 60% womenswear, and I think that gap will continue to narrow. There’s masculinity and strength in the menswear collection, but also softness and elements that might traditionally be seen as feminine. I’m interested in the tension between those qualities rather than picking one side.

We’re planning our first showroom in Paris next January during Men’s Fashion Week, presenting the menswear collection alongside part of our pre-womenswear collection. We’ll keep working on A-list dressing and custom projects while starting to build a stronger international wholesale network. Ideally, those efforts support each other: people discover Viviano through a standout fashion moment, and then there’s actually somewhere for them to experience or buy the clothes.”

Pillings
Ryota Murakami.
Photo: Courtesy of Pillings

Designer: Ryota Murakami
Founded: 2020
Category: Women’s knitwear
Background: Ryota Murakami first launched the brand under his own name in 2014, designing alongside his mother before going solo and rebranding as Pillings in 2020. Since then, the label has built a loyal following in Japan and abroad for its quirky knitwear, which includes hand-Recently, our knitted pieces have been picked up by influential stores like Dover Street Market and Andreas Murkudis.

Pillings was acquired by Little League, a subsidiary of The Sazaby League (which runs Ron Herman Japan), in 2024. When I was working independently, I handled sales, business development, and design all on my own. Since joining Little League, though, we’ve set up sales partnerships both in Japan and overseas, so our number of business partners has gradually grown, and sales have been steadily increasing. Our approach to the brand’s creative direction and manufacturing hasn’t changed much; having a clear business strategy means I can focus more on the creative side.

When it comes to hand-knits, there’s a limit to how many pieces we can produce in a single season. Even if demand goes up, we don’t want to mass-produce these special items just to meet that demand. Instead of forcing production up, it’s important to think about how we can keep this work going sustainably, without putting too much strain on the people who make the knitwear.

Pillings FW26.
Photo: Courtesy of Pillings

One of the main advantages for a brand here is that Japan has many excellent stores. There’s a deep understanding of fashion, and each store picks brands based on its own unique perspective. Even when I talk with designers of my generation overseas, I get the sense that many of them are interested in the Japanese market. When it comes to expanding our business abroad, I think the physical distance from Europe and the US is one of the downsides. We can travel for trade shows, but not being able to chat with local buyers and other industry contacts on a daily basis can sometimes be a challenge.

Our goal right now is strengthening the team. Rather than growing the organization by hiring more people, I want to make each team member’s role clearer and create an environment where individual strengths and judgment can be fully used. As the brand keeps growing, my aim is to build a structure that lets us grow as a team, rather than having everything depend on me as an individual.

Khoki
Khoki FW26.
Photo: Courtesy of Khoki

Designer: Collective
Founded: 2019
Category: Menswear
Background: Founded by designer Koki Abe but run as a collective, Khoki’s seven members bring together a wide range of technical skills and experience honed at some of Japan’s most prominent labels. With a focus on handicrafts like quilting and embroidery, bold pattern work, and a “flea market” sensibility, the brand was shortlisted for the LVMH Prize in 2024 and is quickly building a cult following among the global menswear community.

I think Japan is an environment where independent brands like ours can relatively easily establish themselves as viable businesses. Younger generations are highly passionate about fashion and are willing to invest in pieces without being overly focused on price.

At the same time, I think that can also become a disadvantage. Because it’s possible to grow a brand to a certain extent within the domestic market alone, brands can sometimes venture overseas without having a clear vision of who they are or why they want to expand internationally. There’s also the language barrier, and overseas you need to rethink the way you communicate with people altogether. Even looking at Japanese brands that have tried entering the Paris trade show circuit, quite a few often give up after just two or three seasons.

We’re very fond of this idea of ‘fun consumption’—creating ways for people to engage with a brand that go beyond simply selling a piece of clothing and having someone buy it. Since we launched, we’ve traveled to different cities across Japan, working with local shop owners to create exclusive products and holding workshops where we make pouches with the customers.

Right now, we’re exploring ways to create a physical space for the brand. When it comes to wholesale, building strong, long-term relationshipsWhat matters more is deepening the brand’s presence rather than just adding more stockists. We also want to keep doing runway shows, even if they don’t happen on a fixed schedule. Part of that is for our own team—most of us came into this industry because we dreamed of being part of brands that put on runway shows.

We’re holding our first runway show on September 4, 2027, as part of Rakuten’s byR project during Tokyo Fashion Week, so right now we’re focused on getting everything ready for that.

Ancellm
Kazuya Yamachika.
Photo: Courtesy of Ancellm

Designer: Kazuya Yamachika
Founded: 2020
Category: Menswear
Background: Based in Okayama, Ancellm has access to some of Japan’s best factories, which lets the brand take an experimental approach to fading, texture, dyeing, and washing. Its combination of fabric expertise and accessible pricing has helped it grow quickly—it now has 90 stockists worldwide and opened its first flagship store in Tokyo’s Jingumae area earlier this year.

“Being based in Okayama is essential to Ancellm. Okayama, especially areas like Kojima, has a deep history in denim, washing, dyeing, and garment production. For us, being close to factories isn’t just about efficiency—it lets us experiment directly with craftspeople, make small tweaks, test new processes, and react to unexpected results. Sometimes the most interesting designs come from irregularities or small accidents during production. Because we’re near the production site, we can catch those moments and turn them into part of the design.

Ancellm FW26.
Photo: Courtesy of Ancellm

Opening our first store in Tokyo has been very meaningful. We currently get around a thousand visitors a month, and we’re aiming for annual sales of about 150 million yen ($945,000). What’s encouraging is that customers are coming not just from Japan and Asia, but also from Europe and the US. We’re also planning retail collaborations with a major department store, while looking into future store openings both in Japan and abroad.

Japan still has many factories and craftspeople with highly specialized skills, which lets us create products with a level of detail and sensitivity that’s hard to replicate. There’s also strong international interest in Japanese brands right now, especially those with a clear identity and a close connection to materials, craft, and production. At the same time, production costs are rising, many factories are dealing with an aging workforce, and the domestic market isn’t growing easily. Japan gives us a very strong creative and production base, but building a global business takes patience, precision, and strong partnerships.

We work every day with the goal of one day showing at Paris Fashion Week. We don’t want to grow too fast if it means losing the depth of the product or the strength of the brand’s voice. Our aim is to build a sustainable global presence through strong retail partners, our own stores, and deeper direct relationships with customers around the world.”

Mukcyen
Yuka Kimura.
Photo: Courtesy of Mukcyen

Designer: Yuka Kimura
Founded: 2023
Category: Womenswear
Background: Yuka Kimura launched Mukcyen in 2023 under Sohki Corporation, which also runs Tokyo menswear brand Masu. She won the JFW Next Brand Award in 2026 and the Tokyo Fashion Award, and her background includes working in-house at Yohji Yamamoto, plus a successful career as a fashion influencer. Mukcyen (pronounced muh-shan) is known for its neo-gothic look and tight, body-hugging silhouettes.

“Having a personal audience on social media has been incredibly valuable—it gives me a direct sense of how different forms of expression connect across countries and cultures, which has also helped me understand the brand’s potential beyond Japan. At the same time, there are challenges when the line between me as an individual and Mukcyen as a brand gets blurred.It’s too vague. People being interested in me as a person doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll understand the clothes or want to buy them.

Mukcyen FW26.
Photo: Courtesy of Mukcyen

One of the biggest advantages of being in Japan is having access to top-quality materials, sewing, and manufacturing techniques. This lets us achieve a very high level of detail in our product development. At the same time, the local market has its limits, and for a small brand, it’s not easy to secure enough funding, talent, and an international sales network.

Right now, wholesale makes up most of our business, but we’re also building our direct-to-consumer side. However, at our current size, it’s really important for customers to see the clothes in person through our retail partners—to feel the fabrics and experience the silhouettes and styling firsthand. So wholesale will stay a key part of what we do.

We want to work with retailers who get the brand’s philosophy and can share it thoughtfully with their customers. Internationally, we’re looking to connect with influential retailers in different markets, as well as select stores whose aesthetic fits naturally with ours. Our focus is on building meaningful, long-term relationships rather than just growing our reach.

Answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs based on the topic of emerging fashion designers in Japan

General Background

1 Is it expensive to start a fashion label in Japan
Yes it can be very expensive The biggest costs are fabric manufacturing and securing a showroom or store space in cities like Tokyo Many designers start with personal savings bank loans or crowdfunding

2 Do you need to know Japanese to run a label there
Practically yes While you can find Englishspeaking fabric suppliers and factories most negotiations contracts and daily communication with local retailers and press happen in Japanese Not speaking the language puts you at a major disadvantage

3 Is the Japanese fashion scene only about streetwear and Harajuku
No thats a stereotype While streetwear is famous globally the domestic industry is heavily focused on highquality tailoring avantgarde silhouettes and minimalist quiet luxury Many emerging designers focus on intellectual fabricdriven designs rather than loud logos

Business Operations

4 How do new designers usually sell their clothes
Most start with a mix of directtoconsumer sales and trunk shows Very few get into major department stores like Isetan or Parco immediately They often rely on select shops to build a reputation first

5 Is manufacturing in Japan different from manufacturing in China or Italy
Yes Japanese factories are known for incredible precision and monozukuri However they are less flexible They often require larger minimum order quantities than you might expect and they are slower to change production schedules You cant just email a factory you usually need a personal introduction

6 What is the biggest financial mistake new designers make
Overspending on the first collection Many designers blow their budget on expensive runway shows or extravagant lookbooks before they have secured sales The smart ones spend most of their money on fabric quality and fit samples not on the presentation

7 How important are physical showrooms in Tokyo
Extremely important Unlike in the West where digital lookbooks are common Japanese buyers prefer to touch and feel the fabric