5 Men’s Japanese Brands to Know 

Comme des Garçons’ seminal Paris debut in 1981 recalled the reception of Stravinsky (his music caused a riot) or Picasso’s Cubist portraits. In a fashion world of ostentation and scorching glamour, Kawakubo unveiled a collection intentionally destroyed. This season’s Homme Plus arrivals may be more recognisably structured, but they remain set apart by the same provocative hallmarks: warped seams, uncommon proportions and brilliantly subversive cuts. “When you’re just comfortable with what you’re wearing, you don’t have new thoughts,” Kawakubo once said in a rare interview. “I want people to feel something and think about who they are.”

In 1995, The New Yorker ran a sketch of a tuxedoed man chatting with a woman in a crimped gown. The caption read: “Are you in a Miyake or did you just sleep in your dress?” Such is the fame of Issey Miyake’s signature pleats, the foundation of the late, great designer’s Homme Plissé line. A byword for artistry and innovation, Miyake unveiled his technique in 1988 – engineered in such a way as to be machine-washable and require no ironing, all while delivering the lightness and ease of comfortable loungewear. “Design is born out of research,” he famously said. “The ideas must contain life, and be energised with living.”

When Yohji Yamamoto showed his first collection in New York, a year after his Paris debut, The New York Times style reporter John Duka called it “something of a revelation”. Having cut his teeth in his mother’s dress shop in Tokyo, Yamamoto is now heralded as a master of tailoring – and among the greatest designers of the century. “I strongly believe in craftsmanship and the human hand,” Yamamoto told the Victoria and Albert Museum, marking his solo exhibition. The result, says the brand, are clothes that “liberate the body as well as the soul”.

Not everyone can say they were a protégé of Rei Kawakubo. Launched as a menswear line of Comme des Garçons, Junya Watanabe MAN often reinterprets heritage garments through a highly conceptual lens. “The collections showcase technical mastery,” say our buyers, “from reworking denim and outerwear to experimental tailoring and unexpected fabrications. We love how the brand pushes boundaries while keeping its pieces wearable. Each feels both familiar and completely new, making Junya’s work truly unique.”

Launched in 2021, the Issey Miyake IM Men line brings together design and engineering to explore new ways of making clothing. Calling cards include pieces that fold down flat (ideal for travelling), crease-resistant fabrics that need no ironing; items made from a single piece of fabric; and, of course, the signature Miyake pleats. ‘Practical products meet the people who use them’ is the brand’s philosophy, translating as functional menswear conceived out of wonder, curiosity and discovery.