Tokyo Fashion Week Uncertainty After Earthquake

Update: On March 15th, the JFW organizers announced that Tokyo Fashion Week #12 is officially canceled. Sorry everyone, we’ll post more updates soon.

The devastating earthquake that struck Japan on Friday March 11th has cast doubt on the status of next week’s planned Tokyo Fashion Week 2011 A/W events. We’ve been hearing from reporters and photographers who are set to cover fashion week that they’ve already received several individual show cancellation notices for events that were supposed to happen this week.

The official Japan Fashion Week in Tokyo runway shows and presentations are scheduled to kick off next week, but it’s still not clear at this time if JFW will go on as scheduled or not.

So far, the only official status statement from the Japan Fashion Week organizers is as follows:

Due to the effects of the recent earthquake,
Our organization is deliberating whether the 12th Annual JFW can be held as scheduled.
We expect to have an answer as soon as possible, and we ask for your patience.

They have also officially announced the cancellation of three events – Jotaro Saito, Kimono Style Collection, Creation Niigata 2011, and Splash International 2011. We’ve also gotten reports from other sources that the following fashion shows are canceled or postponed: Banal Chic Bizzare (confirmed), ato (confirmed), and Beautiful People (unconfirmed).

Here’s the JFW statement on the The Splash International 2011 event, which had been planned for tomorrow:

Please note that the “SPLASH INTERNATIONAL 2011” JFW event planned for Tuesday, March 15th has been canceled for safety due to the recent earthquake.

They mention “safety” as a reason for the Splash cancellation, but there are other issues related to the earthquake that aren’t strictly safety related. While Tokyo is relatively stable now and working its way back to normal, many people here are still very worried about those who are lost, injured, or displaced in the tsunami disaster area. We are also under power rationing, including planned rolling power blackouts in some areas of Tokyo (although so far not in the central-most part of the city), and many people are still very concerned about the situation at some of Japan’s nuclear power plants.

There are obviously many issues weighing on the minds of the Japan Fashion Week organizers as they try to decide on the best course of action. For now, we can only wait for their official decision. We expect that an announcement will come fairly soon, and we’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything.

In the meantime, don’t forget to check out the Yahoo and Google earthquake pages for information on how you can help the recovery efforts no matter where you are.