Fetico. Spring 2026 - Tokyo Fashion Week

We're all wondering what the next counterculture will be (aren't you?)  with Right Wing on Far Right action throughout the world politically, and America having reinstalled a Fascist President (2.0), yes it's time to call it like it is, just like Israel's West backed genocide, yes, time to call out that too.  And we are so in need of something to flip this whole thing over, and reclaim our equality, and  rights again, as we all moving further and further to the Far Right.   So, the question that has to be asked, could this counterculture be sexual?  Which is a very tough question, we would have to unwind decades of commercialised sexualisation, digital porn markets, and send it back to something more respectful, fulfilling, spiritual, and even liberating, not a rights-of-passage gateway to Middle Class expectations and mortgage debt.

Fashion has a way of being a futures guide, and yet it doesn't always get things rights, as it tries to gauge trends for the next season,  hence it projects a collection a year ahead.  And the lingerie outwears trend is not new, in fact it had its rise pre 2019 for about five years prior, before fading out from the runways and lookbooks.  So it's interesting that Japanese designer Emi Funayama, when I did review her Fall 2023 collection, is maintaining the said trend, particularly more risque in her approach, aware that Japan, within is plethora of paradoxes,  is actually a very conservative society, and may very well be a societal blueprint for the rest of us, as the young begin to retreat inward, known in Japanese as "hikikomori".  Burt out, overloaded and overstimulated.

Funayama for her Spring 2026 collection, has titled it "The Depth of Her", and I have just completed a study recently in relation to the somatic application of sex toys by neurodivergent women, where the sexual application has been replaced with somatic repetition to soothe frayed nervous systems, essentially 'body hacking' the parasympathetic (pelvis, spinal cord nerves) to enter calm, trance like states.  Truly showing how much depth there is to women's sexuality, more so the divergent nervous systems that require rest/digest, and 'grounding' that is not always based on sex.  Is Funayama alluding to something similar?  Or is it just the wording that caught my attention? 

Her latest collection has certainly upped the ante of the eros, and probably one of the most amorous charged runway shows at this year's Tokyo Fashion Week.  Funayama, seemingly, judging from her show notes, is not trying to shock value, nor sexualize her models, rather, it appears by offering a large array of sexy-esque outfits, could actually be be applied as a comforting stylization, depending on the application and mood; an artistic escape or 'shell' to go inward and explore, and not entirely aimed at the male gaze.  It's a large collection at 49 pieces, mostly utilizing lace, silk and satin, with some beautifully cut and fitted blazers, skirts and sheer tops.  

This is Funayama's sixth collection, and with her label only three years old, there is a sense of maturing and awareness at the multifaceted and broad amatory aesthetic of the feminine, and when subtly combining sophistication, evocation with the mystique, very much aligns with the female eros.

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(A.Glass 2025)