The silhouette of a Kozaburo guy is so strong he needs only be backlit to confirm that the menacing hunch of his shoulders and the electrifying curve of his flares have been designed by Kozaburo Akasaka. Akasaka’s fall 2020 look book was shot exactly thus, to emphasize the silhouette he has built his label around. It was a strong visual choice, but reader beware: To reduce the seduction of Akasaka’s work to his glamorous shapes would be a mistake, even if his high-rise, boot-cut jeans are mind-bogglingly excellent—and now with 1% stretch. First and foremost Akasaka is a craftsman and innovator, and fall 2020 saw him experiment in exciting new ways.
He was inspired, he said, by the idea of a black hole, a mass circling toward itself, spiraling and caving inward and inward. This was translated literally as a logo graphic of concentric circles on a tie-dye tee. (The coppery color of the tie-dye was inspired by Akasaka’s jewelry collection of patinaed necklaces and charms.) Spiritually, the idea of self-reflection came through in souvenir jackets with custom messages written by a monk friend in Kyoto. One, scrawled in script down the sleeve of a track jacket, can be translated as, “The treasure is already in your hands.”
As he worked his way through the rails holding up his collection—situated in the back of an arty Lower East Side smoke shop hosting a pop-up of his wares—Akasaka paused at two new coat concepts. Black melton wool was stapled together along seams, to reduce waste and add a brutalist feel to outerwear. A model shrugged his way into the coat. It was sliced up the back seam, the cut only elucidating the overall grooviness of his full Kozaburo look. As a designer, Akasaka’s got it. The treasure is already in his hands.
