Fumito Ganryu Spring 2025 Menswear

Uniform—and the paradoxical idea of how it can be used to both blend us into a larger crowd or mark us out an individuals—served as Fumito Ganryu’s starting point this season. He called the collection “Uniform of unique form” and intended it as a selection of pieces that the wearer could use to both foster a sense of belonging as well as liberate themselves from stereotypes. “I wanted to make a new kind of uniform which would ignite a sense of curiosity about the person who wears it,” he said, speaking over a video call from his Tokyo office to a showroom in Paris.

The 48-year-old designer, who spent a decade working at Comme des Garçons before striking out on his own six years ago, is as enigmatic as the fashion house that raised him, but this time around he was feeling more open than usual. “I’ve always loved African furniture and interiors since I was young, and I like collecting ancient stones, but I haven’t expressed them visually until now,” he said.

That intention came through in the rounded patches on the shirts that were inspired by primitive, rough-edged coins, and the sewn-on lines on T-shirts that represented drawings of mountains. Most interesting were the wide-legged trousers that appeared subtly knotted at the crotch, or had zips sliding up the back of the thigh—they felt tough and intimate all at once. “This time I wanted to express my personal side,” said the designer.

Underpinning the collection was a yearning to break free: free from the limits put on us by work and society, and free from the invisible messages that all of our clothes convey about us, whether we intend them to or not. It felt like an attempt to grab some of that mystery back. “It’s easy to understand what a person is doing when they wear a uniform, but if they coordinate their own clothes then it becomes unclear,” he said. “So I thought that by creating my own kind of uniform, it would be a new way to approach fashion.”