In today’s world where fashion trends rise and fall as quickly as a viral video on TikTok, it seems a well-designed piece of garment just doesn’t cut it anymore. Season after season, we are seeing more and more luxury brands introduce bigger, bolder and wilder styles, in a bid to capture the attention of customers.

This past fashion month, a relatively lesser known brand from Japan has managed to cut through the noise in a sea of meme-worthy runway shows—with its very own statement pieces. Hailing from Tokyo, ANREALAGE has long been an advocate of “techno fabrics”, incorporating new innovation and technology into experimental runway presentations. For Fall 2023, the brand sent out models donning photochromic fur coats that reveal a range of colors and patterns under UV rays.

ANREALAGE’s founder Kunihiko Morinaga has been famously referred to as a “fashion scientist” and “fashion poet”. A Social Sciences graduate from the prestigious Waseda University, right from the start Morinaga set out to look at fashion through a different lens and create conversation with his boundary-pushing clothing.

So far, ANREALAGE has experimented with NASA’s Aerogel material, worked on developing the aforementioned photochromic technology, and even staged a virtual reality fashion presentation. This is not to say that the good old art of dressmaking is lost on Morinaga and his team.

When it comes to crafting garments, god is in the details for Morinaga and his label—the 40-year-old designer hand-sewn and created his signature patchwork designs all by himself during the founding period of ANREALAGE.

One of two of the Japanese brands that SNKRDUNK brought in to Sneaker Con SEA 2023 (the other being FACETASM), we got a chance to interview Morinaga and find out more about what inspires and drives him and his designs. Below, a peep into the creative mind of one of fashion’s most forward-thinking designers.

SNKRDUNK dropped three ANREALAGE classic logo tees featuring the brand’s patchwork pattern at Sneaker Con. Tell us the meaning and significance behind this signature design? Patchwork is the source of ANREALAGE’s power. It’s been 20 years since the brand started and this has remained the same. The origins, memory, shape, color, and feel from each piece of fabric is vastly different; they all come from different time periods and different worlds but through patchwork these worlds can be connected together.

ANREALAGE’s A&Z logo is made by joining the first and last letters of the alphabet, A and Z. It is the origin of the brand’s patchwork design, connecting different worlds and is the most symbolic of ANREALAGE.

What are some of your fondest memories of ANREALAGE in the past two decades?
A lot has changed in the past 20 years. When the brand debuted at Paris in 2014, it left an impact on me. But what I would like to emphasize more is that the patchwork design (that has been around since the brand started and has continued for 20 years) is still the core of the brand.

ANREALAGE received a lot of interest once again with your latest Fall 2023 presentation with clothes that feature color-changing photochromic properties. Can you tell us a bit more about this collection?
Using photochromic technology, I made clothes that change color with sunlight (or UV light). To explain the color change in detail, clothing that changes color with light using photochromic materials may not be visible to the human eye, but may originally appear to be of a different color to other organisms.

This is the concept of Umwelt advocated by German philosopher and biologist Jacob von Uexküll. Umwelt is the existence of completely different worlds due to differences in the perceptual functions of living things. The colors of flowers as seen by human eyes and as seen by butterflies may differ; the same flower looks different depending on the organism. Even if you are looking at the same world, you may be looking at a different world. This time, ANREALAGE wants to express this with the theme “= (equal)”.

How has your background in Social Sciences influenced your design and work philosophy?
It is important to look at fashion from a social perspective and a scientific perspective, without being confined to the world of fashion. Photochromic and Umwelt are not in the world of fashion, they are science technology and social concepts that are not in the world of fashion, but for me, fashion and Umwelt are equal.

What have been some of your greatest inspirations and guiding principles for the brand?
A focus on diversity, including the natural world. Breaking the obvious perspective and trying to capture it from various perspectives. Imagining the world from a different point of view makes us realize that the world we humans see is not natural.

What do you think of the 3D printing trend?
Together with the evolution of the times, we have evolved together by actively incorporating technology that was originally not in fashion into fashion. 3D printing technology is also evolving. It is now possible to copy forms visually, but from a tactile point of view it is still impossible to copy textures.

The tactile sensation is very important for fashion materials. The fineness of the texture is different from other industries. The texture of a fabric changes depending on the weave structure and the number of times the yarn is twisted. When the time comes when we can “copy” tactile sensations with 3D printers, I think we can apply it to fashion as well and I would like to make super soft fur clothes with a 3D printer.

What do you think of the current trend of sneaker collaborations with luxury brands?
We are expecting fashion brands to collaborate with other industries, not just fashion brands with fashion brands. I would like to see if there is a fashion collaboration between luxury brand sneakers and Apple.

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Sneakertopia CEO Steve Harris on the Singapore Exhibit, its Future (and Other Things)
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