Masashi Nozaki is a 23 yr old Japanese London College of fashion graduate 2010.

The following is a sample of his first collection for fall 2010.

Masashi Nozaki rethinks traditional constructions and details and creates new forms, and a new aesthetic.

See my previous article on Adam Andrascik on new young fashion designers and their search for new fashion aesthetics. This is critical to maintain and grow fashion, and move it forward. Fashion has to keep moving forward in order to stay relevant in a rapidly changing global environment.

Basics are always the requisite. New things are always created
from the old basics. But it is from the old, that builds the basics of the new. Art like fashion isn't created out of a vacuum. Instead of redoing the same looks from the past, the retro death trap of fashion currently, where fashion today is basically doing the looks of the past over, and over again, ad nauseum, these young fashion designers are creating the future of fashion.

The collection is based on military uniforms as an origin of modern menswear with unique details inspired by and taken from the  foolishness and vanity of mankind through the Second World War."Twisted details with traditional yet contemporary shape in natural material give impression of “something is wrong”.

Masashi Nozaki was inspired by history of the Second World War, for his collection. According to Masashi Nozaki, and his research for his first men's collection, Germany was in ruins after WW1. The Treaty of Versailles which Germany was forced to sign, as retribution for their defeat by the allies was forced to make reparations they couldn't afford, to the allies for damages and debt incurred by the war. Germans were angered, and felt that the French and British were trying to starve their children to death. The value of the Deutsch Mark was devastated and their currrency made practically worthless. People at one point used their Deutsch Marks for fuel for fire, because it was nearly worthless. Amidst this calamity the German people looked for answers to why this was happening to them. Horrific hyperinflation wiped out the German middle class, and left millions penniless, and angry. The Germans wanted answers, and they blamed the Jews, and scapegoated them for all the horrors that were inflicted on them, after the war. The Jews controlled the banks, was the reasoning, and they were behind the harsh reparations the allies were forcing them to pay. "When people are very close to a crisis, they tend to panic and try to blame someone and something, they just cannot realize what has gone wrong while it was happening. They find out later as it becomes escalated or after the period has finished. Wrong things can become right sometimes, and when it occupied the majority, right things would look wrong".

Masashi Nozaki tried to apply this thought into garments. For example, a coat with four pockets, the pockets look like normal patch pockets, but they are actually connected to the body, not separate pieces. He calls it a "buried pocket' as the pocket looks like it's buried into the body. What seems right sometimes, is wrong, and people can be swayed to do wrong things. The restructuring of traditional constructions, calls into question our assumptions about where these assupmtions come from. Something is wrong. Even when everyone thinks it's right, in retrospect it could be wrong, so don't be so certain or intolerant in your assumptions. You could be wrong.

Joel Nikolaou