Real Talk With a Genius of Real Clothing (EXCLUSIVE)
Only a few years ago, ssstein was a best-kept secret passed around exclusively by folks willing to put in hours scrolling through Japanese boutiques to find emerging talent (speaking from experience, here). ssstein, however, was too good to be contained and after winning the Rakuten-sponsored "FASHION PRIZE OF TOKYO 2025," designer Kiichiro Asakawa was given the opportunity to present his excellent wares on fashion's grandest stage.
Spring/Summer 2026 is the second ssstein collection to be shown in Paris and though it represents a turning point in the nine-year-old label's aesthetic approach, it's also an excellent place to start.
"The things [that ssstein] wants to convey don't change much from season to season," Asakawa tells Highsnobiety's Madrell Stinney backstage at his SS26 presentation. As he points out, ssstein has always specialized in elegantly understated garments "easy to throw on [that you can wear] without feeling like you're trying too hard."
We've heard this kind of pitch from plenty of designers but Asakawa is different, brainy, a genius of nuance. For example, his brand's name is a reflection of both the mutability inherent to the rugged German naming suffix "Stein" (often translated as "Stone") and its inherently fragmentary nature, implying that his work to create the perfect unpretentious wardrobe will never be complete. All he can do is continue to calmly hone the craft.
"I hope that by gradually and carefully [creating] good products at our own pace," Asakawa offers modestly, "[They] will be picked up by a variety of people."
With clothes this good, there's nothing to worry about.
ssstein classics, like short and wide high-count cotton/rayon blousons, leather coats — constructed of cowhide made extra supple by a soak in a special concoction, Asakawa says — and wide pleated slacks, all appeared in the SS26 line. As imminently wearable as they are obviously stylish, these are clothes for the aesthete, the person who craves goodness and realness and thoughtful clothes for real life day-to-day dressing.
Asakawa's brilliance is, in part, how naturally he grants old favorites new life through form and fabrication. Sounds obvious enough but the ssstein approach is marked by intent.
Shoulders are dropped and hemlines droop as ssstein's check shirts and double-breasted blazers expand upon the x-axis, encouraging adventurous but cocooning silhouettes — and that's to say nothing of the especially fine fabrics sourced and treated to achieve precise handfeel.
ssstein's signature faded denim jeans, for instance, are inspired by vintage trousers that obsessive Asakawa once dissected to better comprehend. His versions are not merely washed but stone-washed, bleached, overdyed, and hand-distressed to achieve a rich finish.
None of that would matter were the clothes also not wearable and wonderful to behold. Which, of course, they are.
Oh, and also new for the season: color.
"It wasn't that I wanted to make colors like light blue, off-white, red, or yellow but rather that I wanted to convey the mood of the color that came from these photos that I particularly like," Asakawa says, citing seasonal influence from Mark Borthwick, Anders Edström, and Corinne Day. "I look at the colors that have been filtered through the eyes of those people. Then, I reinterpret them through my own filter."
The results are so elegant that a neophyte wouldn't know that ssstein hasn't always produced a vivid spread of breezily knit sweaters, instead of its typical muted monochromes. Asakawa's favorite look, in fact, is a yellow V-neck sweater layered over a slightly darker crewneck, creating what he calls a "very deep, personal look." Deep indeed.
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