What motivated you to make an entry to the TOKYO FASHION AWARD (TFA)?

“How many years since … please remember, no matter how many years may go by, please remember”
This is a song called ‘Looking back…’ by Janne Da Arc.
I’m presently 26 years old, but this was a song released on a still cold beginning of spring when I was 14 years old. But even now, it hasn’t faded at all, and brings back all sorts of memories. It was their music that got me started in aspiring towards fashion.
As music often is, that which is truly valuable for that person, stays alive and lingers within oneself forever, and I think, if a certain fashion becomes something special to someone because of something we started, that would be truly the best. Like Mr. Yasu of Janne Da Arc, whom I remember regardless of the many years having passed since then, and so very truly idolized, I wanted to challenge the brand I started with all my might! At the base of my motive to enter is my encounter with visual type rock bands. I was extremely fond of them.Moving to Tokyo at the age of 18, I was lucky to have met many classmates whom I could be in friendly rivalry to apply myself closely and blessed with many seniors whom I could look up to. Towards them, I have a deep, pit-less longing towards them, which makes me want to keep looking up to and following their backs. Furthermore, I have been blessed with a partner whom I feel I want to produce together. I wish for many more people to feel Re:quaL≡ “in the flesh”, and doing a show presentation has been a 8-year dream of mine. I think, TFA is the only competition that will take me, such that I am, one step further into the future.
I’ve actively challenged all sorts of titles, such as the SO-EN Prize, the TOKYO NEW DESIGNER FASHION GRAND PRIX, the International Fashion and Photography festival of Hyeres in Southern France, the big design award, etc., but I feel that from here is the true start. I’ve been wanting to move on to the next regeneration.
As something I learned at Southern France, Botter’s Nina Rich was simply fabulous, and the men’s of Christoph Rumpf too was extremely beautiful. All the more reason why I think Re:quaL≡ also needs to go out to Europe as many times as possible!
Every time I see on YouTube, the earth collection of Mr. Yamagata, the designer of writtenafterwards, which he announced after having received the award, the excitement and shivers I felt then is revived, over and over again. In addition, I have always retained my strong ambition to one day win this award, ever since I received the red TFA pamphlet at the show venue back then.

How do you feel about TFA’s support menu? Which menu were you attracted to?

I’m extremely attracted to the menu, but I also feel that I am attracted to TFA itself. Being given an opportunity to present at Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO is, of course, a huge point in being attracted, but to me, Tokyo is a special place I’ve been based at since I was 18 years old, and since this is a fashion event, an award held at such a special place, I simply had to challenge it. That’s what this competition means to me. Furthermore, coming to Tokyo from my hometown of Okayama prefecture, my mother helped me when things were tight, so I feel, anything I try, I must do so with all my might, and I strongly felt that this was my best chance to show my devotion and love to her, so much so as to blast away her illness. If I win the TFA, I can do a runway presentation. I strongly feel that I absolutely must show my mother and oo-mama an individual runway show. Not just my family, but I also wish for many people to once again realize that fashion is a living thing, through instances which they can actually experience in the flesh.

How did you feel when you received the notice of winning the award?

I received the notice, just as Mikio Sakabe’s show was about to start. Mr. Mikio and I have a history, of him coming to see my creation once a week, a total of 4 years and nestling close. The show was held at a game-center at Takadanobaba, but it was the most splendid, speechless instant for me, including the show. Furthermore, this allowed me to inform him of winning before telling anyone else. This was an extremely happy situation for me, and an instant in which I strongly felt I hoped to repay all he has taught me, through fashion. This blessed, special instant which I hope to one day look back at as one of the highlights of my life, was truly pure moment.

How do you feel seeing how active the 24 past TFA Award winners are?

I hope to further twill the threads of fashion which my seniors have built thus far and wrap it around the human figures that are to be born from here. This is how I feel now. In a different method than the past award-winning seniors, I hope to become an earthly brand! Per se, I don’t think the goal of fashion brands is to simply succeed as a business. By means other than mass production and/or production of clothing based on consumption, I hope to search for the feel of the next generation, while deciding upon a landing point for ourselves, including a system itself. For starters, with a mind of “this could be fashion too, this is fashion!”, I intend to keep doing my best for the next 10 years..

Please give us a word of enthusiasm towards your presentations at Pitti in Florence and the Paris showroom, next January and June, and the goal you are aiming for through these overseas presentations.

I want to never stop attracting and clothing. At PITTI and Paris, I intend further pursue the offering of the texture and fashionability of the next men’s, which I have continued to offer thus far. In Japan, a unique sense of beauty completely different from that of the West definitely exists, so I would like to compile offers which also envelope such aspects.
Something which is constantly at the base, something I feel I must treat with care, and not only this time around is, to build Re:quaL≡.
I hope to be the symbol which changes conventional rules of design and hope to continue transmitting over and over again.
Catwalk is a place people envy, idolize, are impressed, and knocks one’s tear buds. Emotions are blown away far. I think it is like a highly dependent love affair, and as people think, if there is such a thing, I’d like to try drowning in it, I’d like to create such fashion in the future.
While valuing blessed moments I encounter during the process of creation and smiles, as our aim from here on, I place, continuing to create such things which we think are the best.

Re:quaL≡ 
Re:＝ unit of time
equal = always
≡= equal

Always equal to the unit of time