araisara 2012-13 A/W

The 2012-13 A/W edition of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo is under way! TokyoFashion.com’s contributors are reporting back from runway shows and events all over town several times each day. Be sure to check out all of our Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo coverage.

On Thursday, March 22nd, Japanese label araisara showcased their 2012 Autumn/Winter collection on the runway at Tokyo Midtown.

Sara Arai was raised in Beijing, China, and graduated from Fashion College Sakuragaoka. She debuted in China, then moved to Tokyo to start her own brand. Her Mejiro flagship shop was opened in 2005, where she sold her couture items. She started her pret-a-porter line araisara in 2008. With this line, she seeks “to express the connection between traditional oriental culture and fashion”.

The araisara 2012-13 A/W “Adakyoku” collection will be the final collection that the brand shows at Tokyo Fashion Week. Future collections will be shown in Paris. That news made this show bittersweet for both the designer and his legion of Japanese fans. The pieces in the collection featured a mix of traditional Chinese and Japanese prints with modern wearable design. araisara’s unique sense of design – fusing elements from Asia’s past, present and future – will be a sad loss for Tokyo Fashion Week.

Please click the araisara thumbnails below to check out the full sized versions of all of the pictures for yourself.

araisara 2012-13 Autumn/Winter

Click any of the araisara pictures to enlarge them!

External Link: araisara Official Website

About the photographer:
As long as he is behind his camera Will is a happy man. He has photographed everything from the slums of Bangkok to the catwalks of Tokyo. He is a contract photographer for Lonely Planet, his images and photo essays have appeared in Time Out, The Japan Times, Sportswear International and a variety of other newspapers, magazines and guidebooks around the world and his photo essays from Iraq for The Griffith Review even earned him a mention in the Australian book review of the year in 2006. In addition to his media related work, Will also shoots events, portraits, weddings and the occasional CD cover. Whatever he’s working on, he always writes about his jobs and how he goes about them at Will Robb Photography.