In the 1980s, as Japanese designers began to attract significant attention in the Paris fashion world, the term “Japanese designer” came into frequent use. Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo, and Yohji Yamamoto were often discussed within the same framework and treated less as individual creators than as a single collective. However, they themselves felt a strong sense of discomfort with this way of being labeled.

Issey Miyake, in particular, consistently resisted being grouped under the label of “Japanese designer.” He wished for his clothes to be interpreted not through nationality but through individual creativity. Although there was a period early in his career when he engaged with traditional Japanese materials and techniques, his later work rapidly crossed cultural boundaries. His central concern lay in questioning the very binary opposition between Japan and the West.

This issue, however, was not limited to Miyake alone. Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto also maintained a clear distance from classifications based on nationality. Yamamoto has recalled his surprise at being repeatedly described by the media as “Japanese” when he first presented his collection in Paris. He believed that the work he and his peers were doing was fundamentally international in nature. He famously stated that “clothes have no nationality,” emphasizing that being born Japanese was separate from having one’s work treated as representative of Japan.

Rei Kawakubo similarly questioned the category of “Japanese designer.” She has argued that no single set of characteristics can be said to apply to all Japanese designers, and has repeatedly stated that her work is not derived from past fashion traditions or from any specific cultural community. What is particularly striking is that American or French designers are rarely grouped together as “American designers” or “French designers,” but are instead discussed primarily as individuals. Kawakubo sharply pointed out this asymmetry in how designers from fashion centers and those from elsewhere are discussed.

Such categorization by nationality is not unique to Japan. Belgian designers were once collectively introduced as the “Antwerp Six,” while designers from the United Kingdom were described as part of the “British Invasion.” Designers who newly enter the international stage tend to be classified first by region or nationality, and only later evaluated as individuals. This tendency is especially pronounced when designers emerge from non-Western regions, where cultural difference is more readily emphasized.

The problem lies in the fact that the label “Japanese designer” goes beyond simple description and fixes the meaning of creativity itself. The ambiguity and individuality inherent in design are absorbed into terms such as “Japanese” or “Oriental,” and reorganized into narratives that are easy to understand. It was precisely this process that Miyake, Kawakubo, and Yamamoto found troubling.

They were not denying the fact that they were Japanese. What they rejected was the idea that their work could be fully explained by labels imposed unilaterally from the outside. Resistance to the category of “Japanese designer” was not an attempt to erase nationality, but rather a practice aimed at preserving the authority to define the meaning of one’s own creative work.

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