If you want a broad yet accurate window into what a lot of Japanese menswear looks like right now, this debut show from Ancellm provides it. The brand’s first runway show in Tokyo marks five years since the brand’s inception; it unfolded in front of an audience just shy of 1,000 people, in the vast and glassy Triangle Plaza of the Shinjuku Sumitomo Building.
Based in founder Kazuya Yamachika’s hometown of Okayama—an area near Hiroshima known for its wealth of factories and manufacturers—the brand produces much of its clothing locally. Known for crafty and innovative distressing techniques, Ancellm bleaches, sands, and smatters with paint everything from denim jeans to leather jackets, giving its collections a worn-in feel that is uniformly soft to the touch.
Oversized linen tailoring with raw hems, rough-collared button-ups, faded workwear jackets, distressed knits, and floaty pants made up the bulk of the offering, with a consistent note of boho-chic throughout. There was also a ton of dark brown (seemingly ubiquitous in menswear at the moment) that speaks to the slow, earthy mood of the brand and the obviously tactile fabrics it plays with.
Speaking backstage following the show, Yamachika explained that the collection was something of a study in color (he develops his hues from scratch). We went from the aforementioned brown through mustard yellow, deep reds, blanched denim blues, khakis, and intentionally dirtied whites (plus an excellent quilted Barbour-style jacket in an iridescent navy). “There wasn’t a particular theme this time, but I wanted people to see the gradations all the way to the end,” he said.
At 40 looks, however, the collection lost momentum by the halfway point. The problem with presenting lots of clothes with no obvious through-line or cultural reference points is that eventually it ossifies into plain old product. This is all well and fine (Ancellm is reportedly selling very well in Japan and abroad), but going forwards the proposition on the runway would benefit from less stuff and more bite.
