Take a look back to your childhood, I’ll guarantee a piece of clothing stands out. The one piece perhaps that showed you how much fun fashion can be, and set off a life long love affair with it. Mine was a Petit Bateau raincoat, and despite different sizes and colours throughout my life, none has given me the same satisfaction of wearing the first one. It’s my fashionable nostalgia.

Almost every designer and artist takes inspiration from their childhood at some point in their career. Alexander McQueen often drew upon his hardscrabble childhood to influence his collections, and Jeremy Scott constantly references childhood with his use of SpongeBob, teddy bears and Star Wars for Moschino. However, no one uses childhood as a muse quite like Taiwanese fashion designer Shueh Jen-Fang for her brand Jenny Fax.

Set up in 2011, Jenny Fax stood out from the crowd right from its inception. With carefully crafted techniques and an extraordinary palette of colours and materials, Jen-Fang gives her pieces a unique sense of bizarre beauty, as if coming straight from a child’s imagination. Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of every Jenny Fax collection are the references to Cabbage Patch Kids. In 2012 it was models clutching dolls on the runway; 2016 gave us brightly coloured Cabbage Patch faces printed on t-shirts; and most recently we were shown a bright pink Cabbage Patch hand muff. It’s a genuinely eerie way of bringing a designer’s personality to a collection.

Aside from the creepy doll similarities, each of Jen-Fang’s collections is completely unique. Spring/Summer 2012 saw inspiration from school, delivered in a collection that was all about uniforms and prom queens. With pleated skirts, plain white shirts and colour-tastic manga images, the show presented the semblance of a love child of Disney and St Trinians.

2014’s indie-goth collection served up a concoction of neon coloured dresses and trousers contrasted with simple monochrome bralets, accented with simply-patterned black lace over dresses and capes. This collection also included hand-drawn manga prints on t-shirts, adding to the childlike nature of Jenny Fax clothing.

Fast forward to A/W ’18, and Jenny Fax takes a turn in a more sophisticated direction. Schoolgirl pleats have been discarded for pencil skirts and plain white shirts have given way for metallics to take centre stage. This turn to a more traditional womenswear leaves the bizarre aspect to take place in the accessories. Tiny shoes are stuck to the models’ feet whilst plastic hands hang eerily from their ears. Jen-Fang has proven reassuringly that she can remain true to her original take on fashion, even when she’s going in a more stereotypical direction.

Still in its infancy in fashion terms, Jenny Fax has already shown itself as a brand to complete on the world’s stage. With or without childhood attachment, I for one cannot wait to see what they have in store for Tokyo Fashion Week this month.

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Japan has been a hub for pop culture for a couple of decades now: with the influx of anime reaching a large western audience, Japanese music such as J-pop and J-rock again being widely received in the West. The fashion however has made the strongest impact.

Tokyo street style, and the fashions of those who walk through Harajuku, one of Tokyo’s most stylish places, has graced the West with some of the coolest, freshest and wonderfully strangest looks we’ve seen so far. Big brands have adopted Japanese characters into their stores, their designs and even the language has been adopted into western fashion.

Most recently Primark have been pioneers for making lovable Japanese cartoons into cute and wearable items. Pusheen made a huge debut in Primark and has been received extremely well, with new themed garments coming out each season, including one of the most recent additions, that’s right, Pusheen themed Halloween socks. Primark has also embraced Gudetama, a lazy egg Sanrio character which I’m sure we can all relate to, donning phrases like ‘reasons to get out of bed..none’.

Whilst a lot of brands have adopted Hello Kitty possibly the most famous Sanrio character into their designs, brands like Forever 21 are taking the Japanese aesthetic to a whole new level. Forever 21 have recently released a range of T-shirts with logos from Jurassic park and other bright graphic prints complete with Japanese writing. The appeal of Japanese writing meant it has made its way to fashion in the West no problem, as many people love the illustrative styles it’s been presented in.

In 2017 Akira did a collaboration with Supreme. Akira is a post-apocalyptic Japanese animated movie from 1988 which paved the way for Japanese pop culture’s growth in the West. The collection featured art from the creator Katsuhiro Otomo, and gave street style a Japanese edge, a great collection for fans of the movie also.

Japanese style art has made its way into high fashion time and time again, most recently with the Ben Frost X Moschino collaboration for Moschino’s Fall/Winter 2018 capsule collection. Among pop art inspired illustrations there was a couple of designs that resembled Anime characters, bringing Japanese culture into high fashion in a fun and colourful way.

It’s safe to say that Japan’s cultural influence on the West will continue to grow and be received well, as brands and designers continue to be inspired by its bright and colourful culture. Now, let Amazon Fashion Week Tokyo begin!

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The post Japan And The West: Fashion’s Tokyo Turn appeared first on Voir Fashion.