Tae Ashida doesn’t meet the prototypical profile of a hip Japanese fashion designer; at least not one who’ll be successful in Europe, where Japan and Tokyo – partly erroneously – are synonymous with a vibrant but somewhat disparate street scene, and designers/labels who have graduated this scene to either calcify

Suddenly those radical cyberpunk designs we admire from a distance on Tokyo high streets and sci-fi movies seem less of-the-moment and – to be honest – a little old hat. Should the end be nigh, what we wear won’t make a wool jumper’s worth of difference, but should we have

Muscularity. This is what makes Milan different from the other seasonal style stops. Where London is strictly business with a dose of anarchic spray paint; where New York cruises under the awnings of its own uptown lifestyle; where Paris simply rules the roost, Milan – wrongly positioned outside the medal

Movements that focus on the empowerment of women, or the salvation of the planet are vital to the preservation and continuation of (and are rightly adopted by) the fashion industry, but are frequently promoted to the hindrance of some really great clothes and shows. This fall (through the first half

The first rule of Balmain – one which is highlighted during the winter months, and which holds to founder Pierre Balmain’s architectural aesthetic: symbiosis. Current creative lead Olivier Rousteing expounds this mandate in creations whose consolidating and containing qualities (necessary traits of all good design) overpower the expressive ones. Balmain