Enter The Cloud with Hiroshi Fujiwara

With heavy military influences combined with the world’s most innovative textile materials, fragment design founder and Japan’s streetwear legend Hiroshi Fujiwara’s Moncler Genius capsule collection is a nod to the fashion of the future while paying homage to Americana of the past.

Part-musician, part-designer, part-curator and part-consultant, Fujiwara is the tastemaker of a  generation. Not only responsible for introducing streetwear to his native country, Fujiwara is also one of Japan’s first Hip Hop DJs after visiting New York City in the early ‘80s where he discovered the genre: “it inspired me”, Fujiwara tells HUNGER.

Since moving to Tokyo aged 18 from costal town Ise, Fujiwara felt an instant affinity to the city: his work reflects this as it carries an indispensable link between Tokyo and the West. Fujiwara also spent time studying in London in 1982, at the height of the punk sub-culture scene. This time is pivotal to the designer’s style and creative development back in Tokyo, his two biggest creative influences are “Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren”, describing his personal style as “Punk”.

Immersed in New York’s Hip Hop scene, London’s Punk and local Tokyo style in the early years of his career, Fujiwara gained an unprecedented understanding of how the West would inevitably impact his native Japan. Placing the designer at the forefront of Japan’s streetwear scene, he established his first clothing brand GOODENOUGH in 1990. GOODENOUGH is commonly heralded as one of the first true streetwear brands and responsible in making “street culture really high fashion”, said Fujiwara. Influenced by the designer’s passion for punk, hip-hop, and style, GOODENOUGH gave the scene some of its famous names, such as BAPE contributor and C.E co-founder Sk8thing.

As the broader world of streetwear and Tokyo fashion evolved, Fujiwara remained at the centre of it with the creation of his new project: fragment design. A combination of design agency, cultural archive and marketing project, fragment design served as a space for Fujiwara to collaborate with brands and companies on a one-to-one basis.

For Moncler Genius’s seventh capsule, the designer has taken fragment design and Moncler to the next level with the freedom of experimentation and materials through the collection: “Moncler Genius is the opportunity to mix different identities into a new one. It allowed me to test solutions and materials I have never used. The result is an unreleased Hiroshi, but it is also an unreleased Moncler.”

Aviator, Americana and Pokémon references with Mod nods are channelled in the collection, which revolves around interpretations of the parka and the bomber jacket, under the slogan “Team Positive Force”. A military green parka, for instance, sports a piumino hood, while the bomber sprouts contrast sleeves; mixes of sturdy matte nylon and shiny padded nylon highlight the construction of garments.

Alongside the collection, there is also an accompanying video which blends real life with digital. Directed by Genki It, Fujiwara wanted to create a mysterious door which you can “go in and you can go to other places. You can go to the past, you can go to the future.”