View every look from the TokyoJames fall 2023 runway:
By the time we got backstage for this 6pm scheduled show around 6:30, Iniye Tokyo James was 100 per cent ready to go. This collection, he explained, was called Code Switch: “It’s about how we as people wear different identities to deal with different things in society. The zips, following from last season, are about how sometimes we stay mute about certain things—zip it!—and sometimes we don’t have to, and we speak up.
Leading us down his lineup, it quickly became apparent that James has entered a phase of rapid development: while his vegan leather biker core remained evident, there was innovation aplenty and much more fabric than before. Highlights included the color-mix pieces developed by his sister, Esther; coats with semi-freed upcycled rib collars that could be left loose or tied as a scarf; and triple-indigo looks fashioned from deadstock sourced in Lagos denim depositories.
There was also a new foray into knitwear, South Africa made, via a two tone sweater featuring a Gothic font, lowercase TJ logo. Roomy suiting and a boxing cape displayed different Lagos locales—Ikoyi, Agege, Oshodi, Lagos Mainland—in a Lonsdale font. The collection was shod by a collaboration with Dr. Martens that saw James and his team mix white paint with soil and dust from outside their workspace and coat the uppers to create a satisfying level of distress.
James was for sure played a hospital pass by being placed on the busiest day of Milan’s schedule: it would be great, dear Camera Della Moda, if he could be given a more amenable slot next time. However he was also done no favors at all by those running the door: it had not opened by 6:15 and by 6:40 they were still tortuously and amateurishly counting people into a half-empty showspace one by one. Come on, guys.