Satoshi Kuwata on Setchu, Japanese craftsmanship, and why every crease has a reason

Satoshi Kuwata is a fashion designer making a compromise between Eastern and Western traditions. Born in Japan, he has since lived in several fashion capitals, now based in Milan, where he helms the label Setchu. Neither fully Japanese nor entirely European, he observes his native culture with the clarifying distance of an outsider while drawing on an intimate, almost visceral reservoir of memory—scents, tastes, and textures from his early years.

Setchu’s functional garments remain classic while emphasizing beauty in imperfection, inspired by Japanese craftsmanship traditions and wabi-sabi. The Spring/Summer 2027 collection, shown at Milan Fashion Week Men’s, distilled these preoccupations into a meditation on fishing nets, bias-cut rectangles, and Satoshi’s recent trip to Africa, where the raw drama of nature offered him both literal and metaphorical inspiration.

Since becoming the LVMH Prize winner in 2023, Kuwata has gained wider recognition without compromising the scale of his endeavor. As Setchu evolves, he envisions it not merely as a fashion house but as the seed of a Japanese luxury sensibility, while remaining grounded in a respect for materials, process, and the quiet pleasures of daily life. Kuwata’s vision feels remarkably solid: coherent in its philosophy, consistent in its execution, and quietly assured in its direction.

hube: Your work often moves between Japanese and European traditions. Where do you feel the most productive friction—or unexpected harmony—between these two cultural languages?

Satoshi Kuwata: I’m from Japan, and it’s quite a different culture. People describe me as not being like a Japanese person. I left my home country 20 years ago; I lived in London, Paris, New York, and now I live in Milan. I became somewhat non-Japanese, but I’m not a citizen of another country either. I see Japan almost the same way Europeans do. It’s interesting—I’m Japanese, but I’m also looking at Japan objectively, from the outside. I’m like a foreigner, and this way I can clearly see what is essentially Japanese.

Then there’s the other way of looking at it. Yes, I am Japanese, and I have this sentimental memory of what I have seen, what I have smelled, what I have eaten. It’s like a fifth element. That’s how I create the Japanese elements in my collection. It’s not purely Japanese—that’s a really important point. You see two cultures merge together. I use the words Japan, Asian, and Western together, but they don’t have to be far away from each other. When you look at it, there are so many similarities, and yet so many different things.

If something is too similar, the only way I can make the audience realize the difference is to emphasize it. Let’s say, for example, a kimono: it has a flat construction, and it’s already so different from a 3D-constructed garment, so I don’t have to make an obvious difference there. But let’s take an example that has nothing to do with fashion. Say, Japanese rice and Italian rice—they’re so similar. Now I need to explain what the difference between them is: the rice we use in Japan is for sushi, and the rice here, in Italy, is for risotto. Even the same rice is different. So things depend on the topic I’m talking about. What challenges me is the differentiation, and how to emphasize it. That’s how I compose a collection.