Shinpei Goto has been contemplating the hero-villain dichotomy. The 34-year-old designer has captured a generation of people in Japan and beyond with his androgynously edgy-but-cute menswear for MASU—soft boy swag, if you like—but has lately been wrestling with a few demons of his own. What makes a good man, and what makes a bad one?
“Just as the previous season wrapped up and I was gearing up for the next one, I went through some personal stuff that really shifted my perspective,” he said during a showroom walkthrough in Tokyo. The angels and kawaii cherubs, a recurring motif in his work, now appeared in a darker light. “I used to treat them as symbols of righteousness, but I realized that those same figures can look like demons,” he said.
The collection itself was rooted in Goto’s memories: jeans were cut in the same shape as a pair Goto himself has worn for years and decorated with MASU’s signature diamanté embellishments; the tuxedo he sported at his wedding, forgotten in the back of his closet, was transposed into an intentionally rumpled replica with wilted lapels; and a favorite Ivy style argyle sweater was imagined frayed, the V-neck forming a heart within the diamond pattern, as the twinkling threads around it came undone.
A checkered tablecloth from a birthday celebration was shaped into gingham shirts and skirts, styled with dusty pink loafers and gold and silver jewelry that included bitten apple charms—clear nods to forbidden fruit and the tree of knowledge. There were echoes of cowboys too, in the suede tasseled capes and handbags. “Cowboys are a perfect example of that duality. To some, they’re heroes, but to others they’re invaders, so I used that idea as a metaphor that a single character can embody both sides of the coin,” he said.
So yes, the duality of man. A familiar idea, but one that Goto managed to exorcize through an emotionally resonant collection that interrogated the symbols that have come to define MASU and framing them from new angles. It also did what Goto does best, which is to make menswear that, despite drawing on nostalgia, feels relevant and progressive. A little more male vulnerability—and some sparkling jeans—can be forces for good, too.
