Words by Cory Ohlendorf | Photography courtesy of brands

It’s no surprise that menswear nerds (and I’m including myself in this group) are so enamored with Japan. The idea of taking something classic and perfecting it, obsessing over the most minuscule details and then celebrating it? In a venn diagram of the two, that’s right smack dab in the middle of it. I’m sure trends factor into it, but this feels less about trends and more about conviction to good style.

Walk down the sidewalk in Daikanyama on a Tuesday afternoon and you’ll spot some serious street style without even trying. Guys in impeccably cut trousers, a perfectly knotted bandana tucked into a collar, or well-worn workwear jackets that look older than they really are … and speak to someone at a shop and you’ll get an almost obsessive attention to fabric and details that borders on the spiritual. Cut, weave and dye treated with the reverence other cultures reserve for wine or whiskey. A garment here is expected to earn its keep for decades. Perhaps that’s why the secondhand shopping here is next level, too.

That reverence has started to seep west. Stylish guys in the know are already excited about and buying from brands like Sacai, Kapital and Orslow. They’re watching up-and-comers like Auralee and A.PRESSE, contributing to the buzz around Soshiotsuki. Fair enough—they've earned it. But the Japanese menswear pipeline doesn’t stop refilling itself just because a few names finally broke through. There are always more brands to know. Designers who are chasing down archival garments, reviving old practices nobody seems to bother with anymore, or obsessing over a single fabric until it’s right. Here are three brands worth getting ahead of, before everyone else catches up.

The bio: Founded in Tokyo in 2013 by Shinsuke Kojima, a former fashion magazine editor turned designer. Kojima grew up in the ski village of Hakuba, and that outdoorsy, nature-soaked childhood shows up in nearly everything the brand makes.

The designer: Kojima spent years in media before striking out on his own, which explains the brand’s curatorial instinct—he treats vintage Americana like source material to remix on a mood board. He’s obsessive about fabric, working with Japan’s top mills to develop original textiles, and reportedly shares production ties with Auralee (also known for its own fabric mastery).

The vibe: Rugged but refined. Natural materials (heavy wool, thick cotton, hand-loomed selvedge denim) built for a lifetime of wear, not a single season of hype. Kaptain Sunshine takes its cues from vintage workwear, archival field jackets and old military uniforms, then filters all of it through a modern, faintly nostalgic Japanese lens. Think anoraks, parkas and chore coats that could have come off a 1950s expedition, if that expedition had impeccable tailoring. The look books lean into the outdoors, shot in forests and along coastlines, which tells you everything about how the brand wants its clothes worn: often and outside.

Where to buy: Namu Shop, HAVEN, END. and MR PORTER all carry the line.

The bio: Founded in New York in 2017 by designer Taiga Takahashi, a Central Saint Martins graduate who spent his life collecting vintage American workwear—literally thousands of pieces from the 1920s through the 1950s. The brand later opened an atelier and exhibition space in Kyoto’s famed Gion district, more of a gallery than your typical retail space.

The designer: Takahashi sadly passed away unexpectedly of an arrhythmia in 2022 at just 27. Rather than shutter the label, his team chose to continue it, renaming it T.T in his honor and dedicating themselves to carrying forward his research and philosophy. It’s a rare thing in fashion, a brand built almost entirely on one person’s singular obsession, now kept alive by the people who shared it with him. But the honor also feels quite Japanese.

The vibe: Almost time-capsule dressing. These are garments meant to look like they’ve already lived a life, built to survive another hundred years. T.T’s guiding concept is “Applied Archaeology”, Takahashi’s term for a process that goes well beyond reproduction. He’d study century-old American workwear under a level of scrutiny normally reserved for museum conservators, analyzing weave structure and stitching by microscope, then reinterpret those findings through Japanese craft: hand-dyeing, antique power looms, traditional tailoring. The philosophy, in his words, was “resurrecting relics of the past to unearth artifacts of the future.”

Where to buy: Division Road and Neighbour stock the line and taigatakahashi.com ships internationally.

The bio: BAUTH just launched for spring/summer 2025, built around the concept bihukuari, honmono de aru koto (“to be beautiful and be authentic”). And it’s already found its way into some of the coolest shops in Tokyo and Osaka, the kind of quiet backing that tends to precede a much louder arrival.

The designer: Takashi Okubo is the founder and line’s sole designer. He spent nearly 20 years working behind the scenes as a corporate designer for a string of prominent fashion labels before striking out on his own to launch the brand. Two decades of unglamorous, anonymous design work shows in how assured the debut collection feels. Nothing about it reads like a first outing.

The vibe: Muted, tactile, and built on premium materials, from Supima cotton and Belgian linen to custom silk-cotton blends and sulfur-dyed twills. Nothing shouts. Everything is engineered to look better in year three than it did on day one. BAUTH takes classic workwear and traditional tailoring and strips them down to their essentials, elevating utilitarian staples into quiet, high-end everyday pieces.

Where to buy: CHCM, NavyBlue in the U.S., TF and Salty in Japan.

If you want to the perfect pair of vintage workwear pants, don’t leave it up to chance. Leave it to SUNNY SIDE UP, which was founded by a former KAPITAL designer who sources vintage pants and then takes them apart, only to reconstruct them with a new modern fit, maybe some pleats, and additional fabric to make a classic “double knee” form. These painter pants exemplify the approach, reconstructing the worn-in duck canvas with fresh details and all the character of the original workwear intact.

Gaman (我慢) is a Japanese term with origins in Zen Buddhism. It’s a gritty concept, the term basically translates to “enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity”. It centers on quiet resilience during hard times without complaining or burdening others, serving as a pillar of social harmony and maturity. People are often surprised and impressed with how orderly Japanese society is, and it’s this characteristic that’s imbued into children so early and deeply that it becomes a given. This is why we see adults lining up in an orderly fashion at train stations, shopkeepers maintaining the sidewalks in front of their businesses and crowds stoically dealing with natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis.