This New York Fashion Week, Asia Fashion Collection (AFC) held its 7Th annual event, showcasing talent from budding designers across Asia.
AFC is an incubation projection, produced and vetted by Vantan Inc. (creative house of fashion, hair, make-up, and graphic design) and Parco Co. (mass Japanese retailer). Both power houses, along with other partners based in Asia, invited aspiring new designers to compete and showcase their collections during New York Fashion Week. As part of the NYFW Fall Winter 2020 show, seven ambitious finalists from Asia presented their runway collections at Spring Studios in downtown New York City: Ktoka by Shiki Cara Kataoka, Vegan Tiger by Yang Yoona, Ito by Taisho Takenaka/Kurumi, Shi by Chaohua Si, Chalisa by Chalisa Anekvorakul, Seannung by Liao Sean Nung, and aNANA tih sayim by Nana Miyashita.
Many of featured designers ventured for a muted, soft elegance, a departure from previous seasons. A highlight was Ktoka’s Thinner than Air collection which took inspiration from nature, blurring the gap between the model and its background as camouflage and transparent silhouettes gave motion and elegance to the paired structured knits. Elegance and flow transitioned throughout the runway collections from Ito’s sculptured and proportioned crème creations, Shi’s imagination of the early 1900’s, Seannung’s conceptualization of transforming objects as garments, to the melancholy and femininity of Nana Miyashita’s aNANA tih sayim line.