Sunday night was something of a homecoming for Masu’s Shinpei Goto. Officially opening Tokyo Fashion Week with a screening of a film of his Paris debut at the men’s shows in January, the designer gathered Tokyo’s fashion industry and his growing community of followers—called Masu Boys—to celebrate. (The fact that Masu’s fans have their own name goes to show how much of an impact the brand has made in the seven years since Goto, who is just 31, founded it). The mannequins dressed in the collection that dotted the rows of seats in the makeshift cinema were at times indistinguishable from the guests that sat beside them.
“There were times when I felt extremely lonely while I was designing the collection, but I found a sort of luxury in that loneliness,” Goto said at the screening. He had imagined a melancholy hero as his muse and looking at the clothes it was easy to picture a vampire prince or a bishonen Batman perching moodily on a skyscraper somewhere in the rain. Stone angels were printed onto knits and leather vests were cut in a shape reminiscent of batwings, while baseball caps with cutout peaks cast impish shadows over the face.
It made for a well-rounded dark fantasy with plenty of details in which to delight. Peek the extra buttons on the jacket cuffs that elongate the arms, or see how the rhinestones on the flared jeans imitate the spatter of kicked-up rainfall.
Showing overseas for the first time had given Goto pause about how binary the international fashion business can still be about gender (Masu is officially a menswear brand, but Goto finds the term stifling). “Buyers will ask me whether I’m selling women’s or men’s clothing, but in Japan all kinds of people wear it,” he said. “That [fluidity] feels natural here, but I think people from other countries can find it unsettling.”
There’s an intentional softness to the masculinity Goto proposes with Masu, which subversively lends his clothing a sense of self-assured swagger. Spangled hoodies, spiderweb-printed skirts, shimmery velvet tailoring and denim laser-cut with floral patterns all paint the picture: these are clothes for heartbroken heartbreakers of any persuasion.
Goto hopes his work will encourage a less inhibited approach to clothing, especially abroad. “If people can feel more freedom about what they choose to wear through my clothes, I will consider it a victory,” he said. Here in Tokyo, he’s already won. Tonight’s presentation was attended by some 500 Masu Boys who were all dressed in his clothes—and from Gen Z couples to veteran fashion fans, they all looked great. Call it Masu appeal.