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Toga has been a fashion frontrunner since Yasuko Furuta founded the brand in 1997. In this second part of our interview with Furuta, our discussion covered this year’s March opening of Toga’s new flagship store, the social trends of today, Furuta’s plans for the future, and more.

(Read Part 1 here.)

Focusing on How Time is Spent

——In March, Toga opened a new flagship store in Aoyama—your second Tokyo store.

Our Harajuku store and shop in Shibuya Parco are right nearby, so some people might find our location strategy baffling, but Aoyama is a place where all kinds of boundaries are crossed. Toga had to be there, too.

“Crossing boundaries” is at the base of our brand, and we took this as a key phrase for Toga Aoyama. The store is designed to cross boundaries of time, generation, gender, and genre in many ways.

For example, Toga Aoyama offers a selection of vintage items—an important source of ideas for Toga—that have been turned into collector’s items by adding a few Toga-like touches.

Because it has been 27 years since the brand was founded, many of our customers come shopping with their children, so we created our first line of children’s shoes as well.

Outside of fashion, Toga Aoyama stocks a selection of ceramics that I curate, and contains a gallery as well. The gallery is named “Toga Triangle,” and is an independent—and triangular—space within the store. We plan to organize and promote exhibitions in conjunction with the local community, which has many different faces.

Throughout the store’s design, we focused on how people will spend time there when they are not engaging with garments directly.

Toga’s flagship store Toga Aoyama opened in March. Architect Naohiko Hino, who handled the store’s interior design, said: “The design ensures that key symbols of Toga, such as combinations of different colours and materials, do not fade into the background but are vividly present. Care was needed to ensure that these powerful individual motifs formed a single, unitary whole.”

The store’s cave-like walls and asphalt floors use materials that would usually be found outdoors to express the concept of “crossing boundaries” at the base of the Toga brand.

Toga Aoyama also sells one-of-a-kind collectable vintage items imbued with the Toga spirit via embroidery and other touches.

Toga Triangle is an exhibition space where anything goes. Exhibition themes range from art to books and films, offering a peek at the background to Furuta’s creations.

Another unique offering at Toga Aoyama is the range of lifestyle products personally selected by Furuta. Currently on display are vases and artworks by ceramic artist Jude Jelfs. Furuta has long been a fan of Jelfs’ work and uses it in her private life.

(Photographs by writer)

Thinking About Fashion Through the Lens of Social Problems

——Toga Aoyama brings visitors into contact with a few fragments of your current concerns and interests. I’m consistently startled by how incisively your grasp the moment. Is there some source of information that you consciously use to keep yourself up to date?

I enjoy reading the newspaper. Reading the newspaper makes me realize that what seems natural to us is actually quite unusual, which is difficult to see when immersed in the fashion world. Even if I can only spend a little time reading the newspaper on Saturday, it’s an opportunity to ponder social problems like the care issue and our ageing society. Then I think about fashion anew through that lens.

——Can you give a concrete example?

I’m currently musing on garments for the dying. Death is a road that everyone walks someday, so why not plan how we dress for it?

As our society ages, with fewer children and more older people, we will see more deaths, so I want to add more choice in terms of clothing. Imagine clothes that can make those of us who love fashion look comfortably ourselves, even in a hospital bed. I think this will connect with people’s desire to be themselves to the very end.

——That does sound in tune with Toga’s principles. Looking back over the past 27 years, people seem closer to fashion than they used to be. What’s your view on this?

My feeling is that clothes and possessions have become ideological. People might want to buy something because they like how the designer thinks, or avoid buying it—no matter how good it is—because they dislike the designer’s thinking. Young people in particular view the ideals, beliefs, and thoughts offered by bands extremely severely.

Today, shopping is not mere consumption, but a vote of confidence in a brand’s principles. Purchases are made consciously, not in the heat of the moment. I think that’s a good thing. If you approach every purchase with that kind of resolve, you’re bound to take care of the clothes you buy.

We will continue to uphold our beliefs as creators and pursue our approach to monozukuri.

Toga’s 24–25 Autumn/Winter collection. The key words are “Dress-up, Undress, Romanticism,” and the sheer excess of the tightly packed ruffles speaks to the mood of this season’s collection.

Yoshiko Go
Shiseido fashion director
Responsible for analysing, studying, and predicting fashion trends
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