Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo Fall/Winter 2025 was held over six days from Monday, March 17 to Saturday, March 22. This season featured 37 participating brands from both Japan and abroad, presenting bold and expressive collections that reflected the current landscape of Tokyo’s ever-diversifying fashion scene.
Under the annual theme for 2025, “FASHION FANFARE,“ the event continued to explore initiatives that merged Tokyo’s unique cultural roots with a global perspective. The season marked a clear effort to strengthen Tokyo’s position as an international hub for fashion innovation.
Following our first highlight article on Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo Fall/Winter 2025, this feature spotlights a curated selection of standout collections from designers who captured OSF’s attention this season.
⑤ SATORU SASAKI
SATORU SASAKI unveiled its Fall/Winter 2025–26 collection at the Toda Building in Kyobashi, Tokyo, presenting a poetic world that appealed to all five senses. The theme for the season was “Primitive Future.” Designer Satoru Sasaki explained that “beauty born from emotion, rather than the comfort of words and numbers, will guide the future.” Drawing inspiration from the renowned 20th-century abstract painter Mark Rothko, Sasaki delivered a collection that transcended reason and language to focus on raw, unfiltered emotion.
After gaining experience both in Japan and abroad, Sasaki launched the SATORU SASAKI brand in 2019. Known for a style that blends femininity and masculinity, his concept centers around “clothing that creates women admired by men.” In Fall/Winter 2024, the brand launched its long-awaited menswear line, and in the same year, it won the TOKYO FASHION AWARD 2025, positioning SATORU SASAKI as a rising force garnering both domestic and international attention.
The Experience of Wearing a Painting
The show opened with a striking crimson mini dress constructed with loop-knit textures. The dimensional knitwork cast shadows that brought the vivid hue to life in the otherwise tranquil space. This interplay of color continued with bold primaries like orange and blue, evoking the sensation of colors pulsing with life. The loop-knit surfaces resembled painterly brushstrokes, vividly reinterpreting Rothko’s exploration of “depths of color” through textiles.
Looks such as a yellow top paired with graphic check pants and a knit bag tucked under the arm embodied a spontaneous blend of motion and stillness. Every element—color, texture, and movement—was balanced with poetic precision.
Cutouts and Layers: A Reinterpretation of the Body
The collection also featured jackets with boldly exposed backs, crop tops revealing the abdomen, and slit dresses that traced the leg vertically. These cutouts were not mere displays of sexuality, but expressions that deconstructed and reimagined form.
A standout look layered mixed-fabric long shirts and pants, accentuated with cascading belts that emphasized vertical rhythm. The asymmetry in motion created a visual tempo that stirred the viewer’s emotions. Other playful interpretations included leather tops shaped like cut-out leaves, and outerwear adorned with oversized black pom-poms—infusing classic garments with a spirit of freedom and individuality, unbound by rigid traditions.
A Challenge to Create the Future Through Emotion
In a digital age ruled by data and logic, SATORU SASAKI boldly affirms the value of “feeling with the heart.” Through fashion, the brand attempts to illuminate the intangible realm of sensation—something that numbers and logic alone can never fully grasp.
Sasaki’s creations go beyond the notion of wearable art. They represent a belief in the primitive power of human emotion as a guiding force toward the future—a powerful challenge to reawaken sensibility in an increasingly rational world.
⑥ YOUJIYOUNG
The Korea-based brand YOUJIYOUNG presented its Fall/Winter 2025–26 collection on March 20 at the TODA Hall & Conference in Tokyo. Themed “Onko Chishin”—a Japanese idiom meaning “learning from the past to develop the new”—the collection delved passionately into how traditional aesthetics can be reimagined for the present day.
Founded in 2002 in Korea, YOUJIYOUNG has appeared in major fashion weeks across Asia, including Seoul and Shanghai. In recent years, the brand has garnered attention at events such as Dubai Fashion Week and Shanghai Fashion Week, while actively participating in charity fashion shows and cultural-artistic collaborations. Through these efforts, YOUJIYOUNG has consistently delivered creations that fuse timeless elegance with social commentary. With ventures spanning costume design and performance art, the brand continues to evolve, deepening its aesthetic philosophy—an evolution clearly visible in its latest Tokyo presentation.
Deconstructing and Rebuilding Classicism — The Fluidity of Form
This season, YOUJIYOUNG explored the profound theme of a “dialogue between time and the body.”
The show began with an evocative dance performance set to opera music, setting the tone for a collection that did not rely on traditional suiting or graceful gowns. Instead, the garments took once-complete” tailoring and intentionally unraveled it into new, expressive forms.
Wool jackets rippled at the hem, disrupting symmetry, and flowed from the shoulders like scarves. A gray dress embraced deliberate “gaps” between fabrics, blurring the boundary between the body and the surrounding space. These “unfinished” lines—born from breaking apart structured silhouettes—seemed to convey a richness that surpassed conventional ideas of completion.
Drapery as Poetry: Connecting Time and the Body
The collection’s color palette was restrained, centered on shades of gray and black. Yet within this quietude, rich textures like heavy furs, fluid drapes, and feather-light elements created sculptural accents that invited closer observation.
The way fabric waved, the gathering and folding of drapes casting shadows—these details gave the illusion of time physically wrapping itself around the body. Overlapping tops and floor-sweeping mermaid dresses gently swayed the boundaries between stillness and motion, classical and futuristic, leaving a lingering emotional resonance.
Adding subtle rhythm to the neutral tones were delicate embellishments that evoked najeon—Korean mother-of-pearl inlay craftsmanship. Sheer sleeves, lace, lamé threads, and furs layered intricately to form a multidimensional tapestry, linking deep-rooted culture with contemporary sensibilities. The result was a stunning embodiment of “layers of time.”
In the Fall/Winter 2025–26 collection, YOUJIYOUNG presented a bold deconstruction of classicism while proposing a vision of elegance that resonates across time. Where does beauty reside? In whom, and at what moment? The lingering echoes of that question enveloped the venue with a quiet, profound intensity.
⑦ HEAVEN TANUDIREDJA
On March 20, HEAVEN TANUDIREDJA, the eponymous brand by Bali-based designer Heaven Tanudiredja, unveiled its Autumn/Winter 2025–26 collection in Aoyama, Tokyo.
With a background as a former jewelry designer, Tanudiredja is known for infusing garments with a sculptural, object-like presence. This latest collection fully embodied the brand’s essence through intricate handwork, architectural silhouettes, and a finely tuned balance of femininity and strength. Each piece reflected a deep exploration of beauty, where sculptural form met poetic stillness, and decoration resonated with quiet elegance.
Draping the Body in Presence — Where Sculpture Meets Fabric
The show opened with a jacket look featuring a classic black peplum silhouette. Voluminous flares extending from the waist created structured shadows, while artistic button details added movement and depth to the otherwise minimalist black ensemble.
Following that was a fluid, form-fitting long dress, whose smooth silhouette was flanked by dimensional fabric adornments on both sides—imbuing the calm composition with sculptural gravitas.
Another standout look featured an ivory-white draped dress with a dramatic deep V neckline and flowing contours that highlighted feminine allure. At the waist, a leather belt adorned with metallic hardware offered a bold edge, skillfully juxtaposing delicacy with strength.
This collection by HEAVEN TANUDIREDJA reaffirmed the brand’s unique voice—where craftsmanship, form, and emotion converge to create wearable art that celebrates the power of presence.
Reconstructed Romanticism
One of the defining elements of this season’s collection was the geometrically structured petal motif. Peplums and coat collars, shifting in a soft gradient from white to khaki to beige, were adorned with three-dimensional floral details that seemed to bloom directly from the fabric. By blending romantic accents with modern, architectural forms, the collection introduced a fresh interpretation of elegance.
A particularly memorable piece featured a strapless dress embellished with beadwork and sequins, arranged in a patchwork-like pattern. This design carried a sense of nostalgia, as though fragments of memory had been delicately sewn together. The restrained sparkle, kept just shy of excess, elevated the sophistication of the look, striking a subtle balance between ornamentation and grace.
To add a playful touch to the otherwise dramatic aesthetic, the collection also included a teddy bear-shaped bag decorated with colorful petals. This unexpected and whimsical detail brought a charming finish to the collection’s poetic narrative.
A Unisex Vision and Exploration of Texture
The brand’s aesthetic remained consistent not only in its womenswear but also in its menswear offerings. Like the women’s looks, the men’s coats featured large, sculptural floral details around the collar, elevating formalwear with an elegant twist. A standout piece was a washed gray denim set with a relaxed silhouette reminiscent of 1990s workwear. The silver three-dimensional embroidery at the collar added an artistic touch, giving the outfit the presence of a wearable art piece.
Heavier ensembles, such as those layered with shawl-like elements draped over the shoulders, conveyed a sense of freedom that transcended gender, while also reflecting a thoughtful dialogue with materials.
Redefining the Act of Dressing
Heaven Tanudiredja’s garments challenge the notion of dressing by approaching it as a form of artistry. From jewelry-inspired accents and embroidery to sculptural silhouettes and deep respect for materials, each piece is infused with a romantic yet modern sensibility. More than anything, the collection embodied a quiet strength—one that seems to engage in a silent conversation with the inner self of the wearer. It was, without a doubt, a collection that celebrated the deeper meaning of what it means to dress.
⑧ BASICKS
On March 20, BASICKS, led by designer Masamori Morikawa, unveiled its Autumn/Winter 2025–26 collection at Tokyo’s Chichibunomiya Rugby Stadium. The expansive venue was transformed as the stadium’s spectator aisles became the runway, while live music and soft choral harmonies echoed gently through the space.
BASICKS’ Aesthetic: Between Resistance and Elegance
The show opened quietly with minimal, monochromatic black looks. The first half of the collection featured all-black styles with classical silhouettes, subtly accentuated by sheer inner layers and long gloves, suggesting a restrained yet unmistakable sense of fetishism.
As the show progressed, the aesthetic shifted toward a collision of streetwear and fetish elements. One striking look paired a gray hoodie with a mini skirt that appeared to be wrapped in multiple leather belts, expressing a compelling tension between vulnerability and strength.
Another ensemble layered a striped shirt with shorts and tights, blending traditional formality with a provocative attitude. In a particularly memorable look, a shirt was draped from the neck while denim pants—designed with front and back patterns reversed—created a sense of functional disorientation. These elements came together to embody the brand’s vision of a “paradoxical reality,” leaving a bold and lasting impression.
