The Japanese designer duo created a play on contrasts through unexpected combinations
Antithesis is Ujoh’s starting point for Fall/Winter 26 at Paris Fashion Week. In both Japanese and French, the word does not imply a rupture but rather a questioning. With this idea in mind, Ujoh re-examines its own foundations — its shapes, codes, and certainties — in order to rethink them from within.
Founded by the Japanese designer duo Mitsuru Nishizaki and Aco, the brand has long explored the tension between precision and experimentation. The house’s DNA remains intact, yet it asserts itself with renewed clarity. Silhouettes sharpen while volumes loosen, as if the collection were the result of a deliberate stripping bare. Minimalism acquires an insolent edge, infused with grunge energy and a rock spirit drawn from the 1990s. Between élégance and disorder, a new silhouette begins to emerge.
Ujoh’s FW26 collection: antithesis
This season, the concept of antithesis takes shape through a deliberate tension between opposing forces— both structural and spiritual. Ujoh’s signature elements, such as precise layering and functional tab-tie details, remain present. But subtly reconfigured, as though charged with a new energy. The collection continues the brand’s long-standing dialogue with tailoring, a discipline rooted in Nishizaki’s early experience as a pattern maker. Structure remains central, yet here it is deliberately destabilised through unexpected layering and fluid volumes.
Volumes become looser, while A-line silhouettes are sharpened by asymmetric, cape-like panels. One particularly inventive gesture appears in the tailoring: Bermuda shorts in striped or solid menswear cloth are pleated along the side seams and layered directly over matching full-length trousers. The result is a hybrid garment — simultaneously tailored and relaxed — that perfectly embodies the collection’s dialogue between structure and ease.
This conceptual rigour drives from in an almost artisanal approach to material. True to its philosophy, the house continues its deep textile research, this season highlighting fabrics produced on a 1960s Schöherr loom in Japan. Operating five times slower than modern machinery, the loom produces textiles with a distinctive tactile surface. A deliberate slowing down that stands in quiet opposition to the logic of speed and overproduction that defines much of the industry today. In one striking example, a diaphanous silver nylon ribbon is woven into black wool, creating a semi-transparent check. Elsewhere, coats and skirts in deep black and aubergine are finished with hand-snipped fringing, introducing a deliberately undone quality.
Rugged elegance & unexpected combinations
The garments that result are studies in rugged elegance. Unexpected fabric combinations abound. Delicate lace juxtaposed with the utilitarian character of an aviator jacket in faux suede and fur. Heavy metal zippers carve graphic lines across coats and tops, functioning not merely as closures but as sculptural elements that shape the silhouette.
The palette remains restrained: chocolate, rosewood, fern green, and fig. Punctuated by flashes of optic white and beige borrowed from sharkskin suiting. Recurring check patterns evoke a subtle grunge sensibility. Yet the reference to the 1990s is less about nostalgia than attitude, expressed through layering, texture, and a studied nonchalance rendered with unmistakable Japanese precision.
At the core of the season, a collaboration with the Japanese duo DREAMS COME TRUE extends the collection beyond the runway. Designing stage costumes for their tour, Ujoh translates its tailoring language into performance, with select pieces in the collection emerging as direct continuations of this exchange between clothing and movement.
Final thoughts
The theme of antithesis in FW26 Ujoh’s collection extended even to the show’s format. Rejecting a fixed sequence, the looks appeared in a seemingly personal order, as if drawn from a lived-in wardrobe to be explored rather than a story to be followed. This liberated presentation encouraged the audience to consider each piece individually. An object of desire in its own right. While still belonging to a cohesive, beautifully unresolved whole.
In this sense, antithesis becomes less a stylistic device than a way of thinking. An ongoing negotiation between discipline and disruption, precision and instinct.