BEAUTY: Clothing--Toga

Yasuko Furuta's brand Toga was not on my radar until now. But that's understandable since she has not really shown much since the pandemic...but for this London Fashion Week, she created a rather masterful Fall Winter '25-'26 collection that posed the question: is formalwear even relevant anymore? Of course my personal answer is yes (come on, make an effort), but her answer is a little less definitive. She took the idea of men's suiting and stretched it a bit...using some wonky proportions. I really love the enlarged collars that sort of fold over each other, with nowhere else to go. Backward blazers are topped with waves of thin wool. And the casually draped bow tie is a conscious homage to William Eggleston, the father of modern color photography as an art form. He often wore an untied bow tie around his neck more like a scarf than a tie. She managed to close the show with a black caftan or toga (it's right in the name) as a way to show that formal and casual can mix. So ultimately, her answer to the original question is...it can be if you want it to be.

https://int.toga.jp/