Fashion
Auralee, the Japanese fashion brand for design purists
Apr
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When the Japanese designer Ryota Iwai, 41, founded his clothing brand Auralee in 2015, he didn’t intend it to end up on a catwalk. “My idea was to make customers notice the distinctiveness of our clothes just by looking at the sleeves on the hanging racks among scores of other brands in select stores.”
With custom-made fabrics, gentle colour combinations and sophisticated but simple silhouettes, Auralee’s quiet approach has won over a devoted base of followers. “I aim to make clothes that are not ostentatious, not about making a statement, but clothes that allow the wearer to be true to oneself. Above all, I want to make a perfect day for the wearer,” says Iwai.
Having debuted on the Paris Fashion Week menswear schedule in January 2024, the secret is out. After its recent AW25 show – a collection of Iwai’s “long-time favourites” comprising moleskin-cashmere suits, cocooning silk anoraks and neat knitwear for men and women – the brand received 35 offers from new retailers. Collaborations with New Balance and the Danish homeware label Tekla have helped expand its European presence, while fans including A$AP Rocky and Lewis Hamilton have raised its profile. It is now available in 200 global outlets, including Mr Porter and Mytheresa, and revenue has grown by 20 per cent year-on-year. In 2024, sales reached around ¥3.6bn (about £19mn) – pretty good for a company with only 36 members of staff (including those in-store).
We meet at the brand’s headquarters in Tokyo. Iwai is wearing an Auralee baby-cashmere black knit and vintage Carhartt cotton-canvas trousers. He begins by telling me that everything starts with the custom-made fabrics, on which he focuses most of his budget and attention. First, he visits herders in Mongolia and New Zealand where cashmere goats and sheep are reared. He then goes to a trusted mill in Aichi prefecture for wool, Shizuoka prefecture for cotton, and Niigata and Yamagata prefectures for knitwear. Here, he weighs up the thickness and twist strength of the yarn and compares dyes to create original fabrics. Auralee’s most popular items are its cashmere wool soutien-collar coats (£1,305), baby-cashmere knit sweaters (£680) and its signature Hard Twist denim jeans (£335).
Auralee is revered for its exquisite colour schemes. Iwai shows me a wool over-blouson from the AW25 collection in a brownish colour. He explains how the fibres are loose-stock dyed in four colours at the cotton stage, then blended together before the very fine fibres are spun into yarn. “Blending different coloured stocks in various formulas gives a tonal colour to the finished yarn with a mix of grey, brown, reddish brown and ecru,” he explains. This process is not inexpensive. Nevertheless, Auralee has managed to keep its prices in the contemporary luxury bracket, alongside Lemaire and Toteme, because its fabrics are bought directly from the mill rather than from the wholesalers. “We want our clothes to be affordable,” says Iwai.
Iwai first became interested in fashion when his older brother took him to a vintage clothes shop in his hometown of Kobe; he was drawn to imported American and European pieces, particularly workwear. While studying at the Faculty of Commerce at Kinki University in Osaka, he worked part-time at a vintage store where he got to know the fabrication of historical fashion styles including Chesterfield coats and flight jackets. Later, he studied fashion design at Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo; alumni include prominent Japanese fashion designers such as Kenzo Takada and Yohji Yamamoto. A job working with knitwear designer Koike Noriko, whose clothing was made from original yarns that had been spun and knitted to Noriko’s specifications, gave Iwai his first taste of bespoke fabrics. Following a tenure at another fashion label, he launched Auralee in 2015.
Iwai’s attention to detail is remarkable – he can spend hours examining a sample. He likes to get a second opinion from his young staff. They leave the Aoyama office by 8pm, but it’s not unusual for the designer still to be there late at night. “It’s at this time that I’m thinking about what I could do better,” says Iwai. A public bath near his flat is open until 1.30am, so he forces himself to finish work in time to slip in for the final hours of operation. “My favourite time of day is when I finish work and go into the bath.”
He always cycles between his flat near Yoyogi Park and the office. “The 20-minute morning bike ride from my flat is probably the time I feel the seasons changing and the city changing. I don’t drink alcohol and I don’t smoke, so my inspiration doesn’t come from bars or club culture,” he adds. Instead, he says he picks up on the subtle gestures of his friends; the mannerisms of his girlfriend from high school, now his wife; the morning coffee he makes on the weekend. These everyday occurrences are more meaningful to him than trends or sales forecasting.
The Paris-based stylist Charlotte Collet has been styling Auralee shows and its lookbooks since AW19. Collet sees the brand simply as “clothes that are amazingly made with sumptuous materials and colours”. And it’s been a hit with buyers. Mr Porter buying director Daniel Todd says: “Its collections are always a point of discovery; new fabrics, new techniques and a colour palette that is so unique to the brand keeps each one feeling fresh and relevant. The accessible aesthetic makes Auralee a great resource for wardrobe-building, and customers come to us each season for updates on the brushed mohair, fine cashmere and relaxed-fit tailoring that are easy to build outfits around.”
Iwai does not plan to rapidly increase the number of wholesalers: he wants to make clothes he is satisfied with. “We do not set annual sales targets,” he adds. “It is important to focus on making good clothes with people with whom I have built trust, and make them available at relevant price tags, rather than going after revenue figures.” Even after a highly acclaimed show, “I don’t get the feeling of fulfilment,” the designer says. “I always feel I could have done better.”
Model, Yura Nakano at Premium Models. Casting, Ben Grimes
