"I see my designs as costume. I didn’t think people who work in the fashion industry would think it could be fashion." Tomo Koizumi on his industry discoveryTomo Koizumi’s show at the Marc Jacobs Madison Avenue store in New York in February must rank as one of the most talked-about off-schedule Fashion Week debuts since Riccardo Tisci’s breakout presentation in a Milan garage in 2004.
If you’ve read any of the brief and modest quotes that Tomo gave the press in the aftermath of that show, you may havealready worked out that the designer behind the dresses does notshare their absurdist and attention-seeking nature. I meet him in London three months later and he’s still not sure what to make ofthe show’s success. ‘I was so surprised,’ he says, ‘because I see my designs as costume.
Tomo’s interest in fashion came to him out of the blue whenhe was 14. He was in a bookshop, idly flicking through an issueof the Japanese womenswear magazine Soen, when he came acrossimages of John Galliano’s couture collection for Dior autumn 2003 – the dance-themed one, whose flamenco and tutu-like skirts featured waves of ruffled silk. Their effect on young Tomo was life-changing. ‘I had never seen that kind of thing. Like, whaaaaaa? Really shocked.