Proposed Collection: Neo-Nostalgia - The Mechanised Memory of 2000s Japan

Researching Historic Era of 2000s Japan
Iterative Designing

Neo-Nostalgia explores the idea of technological reminiscence - how early 2000s Japan imagined the future through a lens still deeply rooted in its past. In a culture saturated with mechanisation, anime futurism, and high-tech consumerism, there was also a quiet, persistent romanticisation of older forms: traditional aesthetics, obsolete technologies, and philosophical ideals. This project positions fashion as a medium to reconcile the synthetic with the sentimental, the digital with the analog, the futuristic with the forgotten.

This research project documents the development of a conceptual runway collection inspired by this hybrid world - one where mecha suits coexist with kimono silhouettes, and where garments evoke both the post-apocalyptic and the traditional. While designers like Comme des Garçons (e.g, Fall 1998 “Fusion”), Craig Green (e.g, Fall 2015 “Restriction and Release”), and Issey Miyake (e.g, Spring 1998 “Veiled Tubes”) have explored adjacent territories, there has yet to be a collection that directly interrogates the overlap of early 2000s tech-futurism with nostalgic and traditional Japanese ideals. This project attempts to bridge that gap, showcasing a focused study, concluding with a contemporary fashion collection as a response to this tension.

Ultimately, Neo-Nostalgia is about fashion as a medium to discuss the old and new not being at odds but in conversation. The collection proposes a style grounded in contradiction: sleek yet sentimental, rough yet considered, technical yet meditative.

Stepping into this imagined world, revisit a vision of the future seen from the past - a future which didn’t entirely arrive, but still lingers in our collective visual, and sometimes, emotionalmemory.