TANAKA wins Fashion Prize Of Tokyo 2027

TANAKA wins Fashion Prize Of Tokyo 2027 during Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo.

TANAKA is the winner of this year’s FASHION PRIZE OF TOKYO 2027, a fashion prize project to promote the emergence of Japanese fashion designers on the world stage. Prize recipients are selected upon their potential to become an international brand that represents Tokyo in the future, increase their visibility in terms of design, number of items and price range and their ambitions to show overseas, with the structure to carry out this intention.

Jury of Fashion Prize Of Tokyo 2027 are Yukari Negishi Executive Officer, Little League Company, Inc. Women’s Creative Director, Ron Herman / Yoshimi Nagao Creative Director / Motofumi “Poggy” Kogi Fashion Curator / Ryo Takashima Fashion Director.

To enhance international recognition, Tanaka’s event will be held in Paris in January and June 2027. Additionally, Tanaka’s event will be held at Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo in March.

Previous Award-Winning Designers: Mame Kurogouchi, Maiko Kurogouchi / AURALEE, Ryota Iwai / TAAKK, Takuya Morikawa / CFCL, Yusuke Takahashi / TOMO KOIZUMI, Tomoaki Koizumi / M A S U, Shinpei Goto / ssstein, Kiichiro Asakawa

Sayori Tanaka as a Founder and Designer of TANAKA. Raised under the influence of her father, an oil painter and kimono textile designer, and her grandfather, a landscape architect. After graduating from the Apparel Fashion Design Department at Tokyo Mode Gakuen, she began her career at Yohji Yamamoto, gaining experience as part of the creative team, as well as in knitwear and cut-and-sew design. She later joined Fast Retailing / UNIQLO, where she served as a leader of the Women’s Global Design. She moved to the United States in 2013 and founded TANAKA in New York in 2017.

Akira Kuboshita as a Creative Director and Partner of TANAKA. After graduating from the Stylist Department at Bunka Fashion College, he joined Fast Retailing. At Uniqlo, he served as a leader of the Men’s Global Design Team, working primarily across UT, activewear, and knitwear, while also contributing to various creative and planning projects in Japan and abroad. In 2020, he formally joined TANAKA as a creative partner.

TANAKA is a unisex brand based in New York, launched in 2017. “Clothing that spins together the past and the next 100 years. Clothing that is loved for a long time, transcending time and gender. ” Based on this philosophy, the brand is exploring the nature of new classics (masterpieces), moving back and forth between reality and creativity. Centered around the borderless sensibility of the multicultural city of New York and modern Japanese denim based on Japanese artisan techniques, the brand freely travels between creative fields such as art, craftsmanship, traditional Eastern and Western crafts, and technology, while connecting people and society, culture and memory, through clothing. The brand has received international acclaim, including being selected as a “Radar Designer” by Bergdorf Goodman and winning the TOKYO FASHION AWARD 2023. The brand also designed the uniforms for Blue Bottle Studio – Kyoto, reconstructing workwear in a modern way and presenting a universal aesthetic that blends Western and Japanese cultures. The new line “Art of TANAKA”, launched in 2025, is centered around the designer’s philosophy. Moving freely beyond the boundaries of art, craftsmanship, traditional craftsmanship, and technology, while answering the question “What can we leave behind for the next 100 years?” through its creations. It functions as a creative device that brings together the power of human hands and technology to more concretely put into practice TANAKA’s philosophy of “spinning together the past and the next 100 years. ” In August 2026, TANAKA AOYAMA was relocated and relaunched as TANAKA ATELIER STORE, a distinctive space embodying the brand’s creative vision and philosophy.