Young Japanese Designers Turn Headlines at Rakuten Fashion Week | JAPAN Continue

On March 17, Global Fashion Collective, a Canadian organization founded in 2017 to cultivate the future of global fashion talent, held an exhibition at Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo. Featured designers included Ao Miyasaka, 26, and Marika Suzuki, 20, from Japan. Miyasaka and Suzuki also appeared at New York Fashion Week, from February 11-16.

There are many sources of inspiration for fashion designers. For some it is technological progress. For others, social norms. For others, the motivations are very personal. Miyasaka and Suzuki, two young designers, fall into the third camp.

Marika Suzuki is an upcycle designer, whose creations include thermoplastics, and textiles that were meant to be thrown away. A victim of bullying in high school, and suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder, he uses his problems to create works with themes of “weakness” and “living with imperfection.” He admits, maintaining an environment that promotes upcycling is important to his work, but it is not “an important method.”

Designs Inspired by the Classic Past

Ao Miyasaka’s creative source is very dark. A victim of sexual abuse in her childhood, she began her artistic career as a muralist in a public housing complex in the city of Matsumoto, Nagano.

He would move on to painting, but it was through decorating that he found a “flow state” that proved to be an effective form of therapy. It was art that swept away his suicidal thoughts and gave purpose to his life, he said in a long interview with JAPAN Forward.

In addition to countless runway shows over the past five years, Miyasaka has exhibited textiles, jewelry and paintings, in places including the United States, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. In February 2026, his paintings were exhibited in New York. The main focus was the “embroidered graffiti” that can be seen in many of his fashion styles.

Miyasaka wants to translate the topic of “spiritual murder” into a fashionable language – a term used to describe violence against children in the home, and the trauma of sexual crimes.

Guilt, Fear, and Resilience

The end of his program was very powerful. One model walked to the end of the runway. The body he was wearing did not have armholes, but it had three armholes. He was joined by two other models who put on a cap that was covered with pictures, and messages sent to the youth of today. Its main directive was less optimistic than patient: “Just go on living.”

The three creative holes in the middle model represent the number of times Miyasaka freely admits to having been sexually assaulted. The music that accompanied the finale began with the kind of innocent music that can often be heard when children attend Japanese school initiations and graduation ceremonies. It suddenly changes to a muffled recording of the tense encounter Miyasaka had with the policeman.

“From an ordinary moment of peace,” Miyasaka explains, “fear can strike without warning.”

Dreams of the Future

Both Suzuki and Miyasaka are young women with a future. What hope do they have for Japan and themselves? For now, Suzuki, a recent graduate, is happy that an arts-based higher education program supported by his parents has led him to a career that is actually profitable. He wishes to collaborate with film directors Tim Burton and Mika Ninagawa.

Interestingly, Suzuki feels that while children tend to express their distaste directly for people who differ in appearance and hobbies, adults treat them with “extreme respect.” He hopes for more acceptance of the “new values” in his country which is driven by conformity.

Miyasaka’s main desire is a society where people of conscience “open their eyes and raise their voices” on issues such as sexual harassment. However, he sees the solution in terms of society.

“I want to reach people who haven’t had time to get involved in culture or art, and to meet those who can look at and change social conditions,” he said. As the controversy over the Epstein files continues in the United States and elsewhere, his campaign could have been well timed.

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Author: Paul de Vries