Quality over Quantity
Once again, Tokyo Fashion Week kicked-off again under ‘covid guidelines’ leaving most of the outside media hanging out in the wind. While there were more physical shows this season over the previous 2 seasons, we actually could enter more shows in previous seasons under the same guidelines. Which has forced us to look at things in the Quality over Quantity perspective. There seems to still be a big disconnect in the system, but I could honestly say that the process this season was a bit smoother than previous. The question that is running through all the outside media folks that were left out is, “why do we submit our accreditation and then get ‘approved’ just to be told (or not told) that we are not welcome?”
This is the biggest reason why Tokyo’s Fashion Week is on the steady decline to attract audiences. Seems they prefer to only let in very select local Japanese media with very little influence in the western side of the industry. While these local media folks publish their stuff on Japanese websites and not their western parent websites, just goes back to our big question “who are you trying to appeal your brand’s image too?” Seems like the Japanese brands that do show here are all low key and scared of the limelight… where the bigger Japanese designers all have taken their looks to NY, London, Paris and Milan and have blown up to become icons in Japanese fashion. I guess this is why we have seen the big turnover in Marquee sponsors over the years, from Mercedes-Benz to Amazon and currently Rakuten. I would go out on a limb and say that when we had western marquee sponsor, the media was much more diverse and welcoming to western media… of course all this was well before covid hit, but even as things have relaxed as far as covid guidelines nothing has really changed since the first season back after the cancellation due to covid. This begins to make outsiders think that things are favored to only allow Japanese media run the shows.
Main point here is, nothing will change until there is fresh blood in the seats and that they are not influenced by the old fashioned ideas and practices before them, but this is Japan… likely they have someone already lined up to take over and the said person is being groomed to follow in the close footsteps of his mentor.
