COMING SOON... LAD MUSICIAN

Yuichi Kuroda and his brand Lad Musician debuted in 1995 with the collection titled simply "Debut." From that moment, Lad Musician has continued to gain a huge amount of popularity throughout Japan, dressing young men and women with their simple slim designs. Outside of Japan, the brand has always been something of a grail with pieces being very difficult to track down without directly visiting the country yourself. Needless to say, we are very happy to be one of the few stores outside of Japan to stock the brand.

From the beginning Lad Musician has always taken a huge influence from music and especially in the past few years, the influence has shown very strongly. The S/S2005 collection "Innocent" included the first fashion collaboration ever with famous guitar makers Fender while the S/S2006 collection "Metal Box" introduced a collaboration with Bob Marley/Sex Pistols/Public Image Ltd photographer and Basement 5 member Dennis Morris which included photo t-shirts and photo exhibitions. With these rock influences have come also Lad Musician's notorious rock silhouette. The basic Lad Musician fit often includes super slim jackets with a slightly cropped torso and long arms, slim anti-fit jeans worn low on the hips, and a lot of attitude. To tie it all in together, these signature styles have found their way also into their immaculately tailored suit pieces and wovens. The clothes work perfectly as a marriage between fashion and music, keeping the styles simple enough to stay with the wearer for a long time.

The FW2008-2009 collection "The Last Time" showed early last April in Tokyo and the musical influence is as strong as ever. With a full version of "Going Home" by the Rolling Stones droning on in the background, the models paraded down the runway looking quite like mid-60s era Rolling Stones -- one model in particular closely resembled the decadent Brian Jones. Unlike the more 70s Stones influenced FW2007-2008 collection "Cocksucker Blues," this collection paints a more gentle and innocent portrait. The body of the clothes has the signature slim cut but this time around the shoulders are slightly wider, giving an almost childish dropped effect which seemed prominent in the Stones' earlier carrier.

Arrivals for the FW2008-2009 collection should begin around early August. Keep an eye out for knitwear, accessories, bottoms, accessories, and the signature photo t-shirts. Until then, take a look at some of the runway shots below.