When Soshi Otsuki was in Paris during men’s fashion week this season, he went into the vintage store Chez Ammar and encountered a group of six suit-wearing lads. Crammed into the small store together, they struck up a conversation and, when Otsuki told them his name, the young men were starstruck. “You’re Soshi Otsuki?!” The designer couldn’t understand much of what came next, but remembers them shouting “Armani!” to him.
Otsuki’s influence is slowly gaining momentum among menswear insiders. He enjoyed viral success on Instagram last season, and A$AP Rocky wore one of his Armani-inspired suits on the cover of The Travel Almanac, further boosting his profile (and his sales abroad—98% of customers on his e-commerce store are based in the US). Though he appreciates the surge in attention, Otsuki is unfazed. “I don’t feel any pressure from this increased recognition. If anything I think it was too low up until now,” he grinned at a showroom walk-through in Tokyo on a February morning.
That said, this newfound recognition is coming at the right time. Last week Otsuki was announced as a semi-finalist for the LVMH Prize (along with Pillings’ Ryota Murakami, one of his friends and contemporaries from their time studying together at Coconogacco). It is not Otsuki’s first time—he was previously part of the prize’s 2016 cohort—and in the near-decade since he has built confidence as well as business nous. “Last time I was satisfied with just making it to the semi-finals, but this time I want to go further,” he said.
What makes him a good contender? Otsuki knows how to play with trad menswear codes, deftly applying dissonance in the details to create something that, though clearly riffing on the past, feels right for the moment. He is also excellent at tuning into the historical dialogue between Japanese menswear and Western menswear, finding ways to incorporate elements of both into his clothes in ways that feel refreshing and convincing.
This time he leaned further into the drapey 1980s suiting vibe he introduced last season, exaggerating the power shoulders on his street-rat gray jackets even further, the wools of which were inspired by Italian suiting textiles but woven in Bishu, Japan. A wingtip tuxedo shirt was given shoulder pads so that it puffed out underneath a soft black cardigan, while other button-ups were made from deadstock linen and sewn with lines at the chest to make them appear narrower and further emphasize the shoulders. The designer practiced judo in his youth, and the broad shoulders he developed made it difficult for him to fit into the slim suiting that was popular in the 2000s—this, he explained, sparked a fascination with shoulder shapes.
He also added squishy shearling jackets, plus some womenswear in the form of pencil skirts styled with oversized blazers. He has dabbled in womenswear before, but this season was the first time it felt fully formed. Baggy corduroy pants were given extra belt loops attached above the waistline so that they served almost as suspenders, shifting the silhouette. There were also metal cigarette cases and belts with ashtrays built into the buckles. (Like Yohji Yamamoto, Otsuki smokes Hi-Lites.)
Otsuki himself is a stoic character, but his vision speaks for itself. Looking at his clothes, even in the showroom, you can almost smell the smoke in a high-end izakaya or hear the growl of a muscle car cruising under the lights of Tokyo at night. Here is one of the most captivating menswear designers Japan has seen in a generation. The world is rightly beginning to take notice.
