KUON

KUON is a Japanese designer clothing label for men, founded in Tokyo in 2016 by Arata Fujiwara, with designer Shinichiro Ishibashi. Ishibashi apprenticed with an established Tokyo tailor and worked as a pattern maker at a high-end brand showing in Paris before becoming KUON's designer. The name means eternity, the remote past or the future, and permanence, reflected in its motto: "New things become old, but beautiful things remain beautiful." KUON makes jackets and coats such as the Sashiko Crest Snow Parka and Dorozome MA-1, shirts, T-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, vests, hakama trousers and denim, plus caps, bags and one-of-a-kind vintage boro pieces. Everything is made in Japan. The label combines traditional boro patchwork, sashiko stitching, sakiori weaving and mud dyeing with Western clothing, revitalising vintage textiles. It upcycles boro with the Otsuchi Sashiko Project in Iwate, which supports recovery from the 2011 earthquake, and its sakiori is woven by people with disabilities at Sakkora Japan. KUON won the Tokyo Fashion Award in 2018, which took it to Pitti Uomo and the showroom.tokyo in Paris, and runs a flagship store in Tokyo.