Akiko Shinoda

As the former director of international affairs for Amazon Tokyo Fashion Week, Akiko Shinoda is a tireless supporter of an industry that, despite the abundance of young talent and the cultural legacy of fashion, appears to lack the official support that the likes of London Fashion Week enjoy.

Despite the fragmented local market in Japan, without the type of unified support that cities like London or New York enjoy, Shinoda has worked to bring foreign press to official JFW events. She also aims to bolster the ranks of designers who are showing on-schedule, as many designers choose to go off-schedule. In 2009, Shinoda convinced the Japanese government to sponsor an international showcase of top young Japanese fashion talents in New York City. The government has also pledged to invest $50 million dollars over 20 years to help Japanese companies in the arts and culture sectors grow overseas.

Alongside the government’s slow response to the growing fashion sector, Shinoda had to grapple with a steady drop in Japan’s birth rate and its effect manifest in a domestic consumption slowdown. Between 2013 and 2014, Japan’s apparel industry had shrunk by 10.3 percent. While huge names such as YohjiYamamoto and new labels such as Sacai have made their escape to Paris’ prominent stage, Shinoda sees her patriotic fashion crusade as an effort to provide the necessary incubation space for up and coming Japanese designers to hone their talents.

She rightly noted that other countries in Asia, such as Korea, Indonesia and Singapore are heavily investing in fashion and Japan is only now recognising the sector’s potential. The country is home to international heavy-hitters across the price spectrum, from Uniqlo to Rei Kawakubo ’s heavily conceptual Comme des Garçons. Until recently, its appetite for Western luxury labels was also the largest in the region until it was surpassed by China in recent years.