KeisukeYoshida’s Fall/Winter 2025 Collection: A Designer’s Intimate Therapy Session

Keisuke Yoshida has always been drawn to the art of introspection, turning his emotions, insecurities, and childhood memories into deeply personal, theatrically compelling fashion. This season, he once again delved into his past, using the ROSA Kaikan—a retro arcade, cinema, and bookshop in northern Tokyo—as both his runway and his time machine. As a child, Yoshida found solace in this very space, escaping into books and films as a lonely kagi-ko (latchkey kid). Now, at 34, he returns, not just to revisit his formative years, but to weave nostalgia into something contemporary and wearable.

The show opened with an eerie juxtaposition: the cheerful beeps of arcade games suddenly swallowed by a wave of white noise, as if memories were being erased in real time. Then, his whimsical muses appeared. Models walked with an almost cautious grace, their stilettos echoing against the worn tile floors as they moved through the space like figures caught between past and present. Their silhouettes struck a careful balance—sharp yet fluid, restrained yet expressive. Trench coats, cinched tightly at the waist, exuded quiet power, while plissé and lace skirts softened the look, adding a sense of delicacy to the structured tailoring.

Yoshida’s signature knotted blouses returned, binding the chest and arms in a way that felt both elegant and suffocating—like a beautifully wrapped package hiding an unknown weight inside. But this time, the collection wasn’t just about constraint. Unlike past seasons, where he leaned into formality and restraint, this collection welcomed a new sense of ease, as if he had loosened his grip on the past just enough to let the present in.

Enter the quilted jackets and windbreakers: slouchy, oversized, and brimming with movement, offering a sporty counterpoint to his typically refined aesthetic. Bold prints—ranging from abstract florals to Persian rug-inspired patterns—clashed and harmonized across different looks, creating a visual dialogue between nostalgia and modernity. The juxtaposition continued in the styling, where workleisure elements—detailed shirts with sharp collars, structured yet relaxed tailoring—blurred the line between everyday practicality and high fashion.

Even the accessories played into this duality. Some models clutched dainty shoulder bags, their sleek hair and polished silhouettes evoking an almost cinematic elegance. Others carried sporty backpacks, their slightly disheveled looks hinting at a more lived-in reality. This contrast felt deliberate, a meditation on the fluidity of modern femininity—how women exist between worlds, slipping between roles with effortless complexity.

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Still, Yoshida couldn’t resist adding deeply personal touches to his garments, layering the collection with intimate storytelling. A Persian rug motif on quilted jackets nodded to the carpet in his childhood bedroom, while a floral quilted coat mirrored the print of his childhood mattress. These details blurred the line between memory and modernity, between clothing as mere fabric and clothing as a vessel for lived experience. The collection itself felt like a dreamscape—one foot in the past, the other stepping firmly into the present.

Backstage, Yoshida reflected on this shift in his approach. “For the past few seasons, I was fixated on nostalgia,” he admitted. “But now, I’m thinking more about the space between myself and society—how that distance shapes my vision of women.” The addition of more casual elements, he explained, was an effort to ground his muse, to bring her out of the past and into reality. “Reality is more important than the past,” he mused. “I thought I should start expressing that more.”

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If Yoshida’s previous work was a deep dive into memory, this season felt like an exhale—a moment of release, a quiet step toward something new. His storytelling remains as poetic as ever, but this time, there’s a sense of movement, of evolution. The past will always be there, stitched into every seam, but Yoshida seems ready to embrace something else: the present, in all its messy, imperfect beauty.