In Japan, that’s summer — a long, oppressively hot season where a tyrannous sun tightens its grip on the body and the mind alike every year. Lately, however, the temperatures have been the most wicked on record, making the prospect of putting on clothes a daunting task. Mitsuru Nishizaki, creative director of Ujoh, has noticed that shift. He says, the conversation around clothes in Japan has turned increasingly negative. So, this collection poses a question in response: How can fashion restore lightness — and a sense of positivity — to the simple act of getting dressed? 

Surrounded by the rough, concrete aesthetic of the Saut du Loup showspace at the Palais de Tokyo, we gather for Ujoh’s spring-summer 2026 outing at Paris Fashion Week. Twirling jazzy notes signal the start of the show. All eyes are on the head of the runway — a white backdrop with broad, ocean-blue brushstrokes. I notice the fringed skirt before anything else: a blur of fishnet and braided strands swaying their way down the runway. Up top, a cool, crisp button-up and a tailored blazer with the right amount of slouch. A light sheen of sweat glistens on the model’s forehead and cheeks (an illusion created with some shimmering makeup). 

A Cut Above

Some background: Mitsuru founded his brand alongside Aco Nishizaki in 2009 after working as patternmakers for years — an experience that helped them develop a zealot’s passion for drape and shape. The design duo have since been praised for the inventiveness of their techniques and admired for their avant-garde tailoring and flair for deconstruction. These descriptors will no doubt be used again, as this season, we see them explore new angles, drapes, and cuts that offer enough ventilation — and a sense of coolness, literally and figuratively — for an infernal midsummer heat. 

As masters of asymmetry, Mitsuru and Aco chalk up diagonally sliced toppers, blazers with slits on the sides, and dresses that end with uneven hemlines. They engineer a quirky skirt-pants hybrid with a pant leg on one side and a skirt on the other. They liberally scatter buttons that can be opened up like secret windows on the body. Pantlegs are spliced open, and cutouts at the hips invite some much-needed airflow. But there’s more to unpack the closer you zero in. Having attended an Ujoh show and followed the brand over the years, I’ve learned never to avert my gaze as models make their way down the runway — because there are often surprises artfully concealed in the back. One pinstriped blazer, for example, flaunts a structured cut that opens into a soft cascade of fabric. 

This season, the fabrics are lighter, more breathable, more summer-proof than ever. Think: lightweight gabardine, crisp poplin, airy cotton, and linen blended with rayon to help maintain a fluid drape. Knits in open weaves and mesh are designed to ward off the heat, revealing and concealing in equal measure. Long diaphanous shirt-dresses, worn mostly unbuttoned over tailored bottoms, float around the body rather than cling to it. The design duo also cuts fishnet into paneled tops, leaving vertical threads loose at the hem. (Did I mention there’s a lot of fringe swishing and swooshing throughout the collection?) But all this transparency is handled with so much polish. 

Ahoy There!

To escape the oppressive heat, the designers went where many instinctively do — to the water. Consequently, there are marine references aplenty. Sea-inspired elegance comes, most notably, through sailor collars. Generously wide lapels and square back panels add a playful energy to dresses and shirts, with long, exaggerated front ties that drape down below the waistline. Then there are the V-shaped buttoned cape-blazers. “It came from the [marine sailor cut],” Mitsuru says through his translator backstage after the show. “And then, [we thought]: ‘What can we do differently — even more?’ That’s when this piece was born.”

Stripes turn up often, reminiscent of Italian Riviera-style umbrellas that line beachfronts. The swimming-pool blue looks stand out in a lineup of mostly neutrals. (Sun-umbrella stripes also appear in quieter colorways like navy and black.) A strappy sundress with a folded over neckline is the perfect throw-on-and-go formula when styled with matchy-matchy bottoms. Leaving it halfway buttoned creates a buoyant effect when the model walks down the runway. In fact, a lot of long shirt-dresses in this collection most frequently are joined by pants. Layering is always where Ujoh scores. 

Mixing and Matching

One of the collection’s biggest strengths is its textural mash-ups. This season, we see the designers play with tailoring and sportswear — a result of a collaboration with activewear giant Reebok. Technical fabrics have a softer sensibility when they’re pursued as dresses and wrap-style skirts, which in one look is fastened by a single button and layered on top of well-tailored pants. Exposed zippers, oversize pockets, drawstring details are all ideas borrowed from the sportswear vernacular, but the layering here (once again, masterful) gives these pieces newfound ease and sophistication. As does the retro-inspired palette of soft whites, powder blues, and timeworn browns — which the designers mine from their memories of vintage sneakers.

Elsewhere, the color palette is pared to basic whites and beiges, before giving way to coolly elegant blacks — a trio the show notes call “radically Japanese.” Still, there are some pops of color by way of blues and one solitary head-to-toe yellow look that injects a bit of unexpected energy into the lineup. Why just one? I ask him backstage. “There’s maybe not that much behind it,” he says through his translator. You can think of it as the sun, he suggests. Light, loose, and easy, it has this look of unplanned nonchalance. With that, I have to say: Heat-wave dressing has never looked more uplifting.