For emerging designers like Satoshi Kuwata, the LVMH Prize can be a lifeline. Established in 2013, with its first edition a year later, it awards a £250,000 endowment for a brand, plus a one-year tailor-made mentorship programme with esteemed industry insiders. Need proof of its success? Just look at some past winners: Grace Wales Bonner, Marine Serre and Simon Porte Jacquemus.
Satoshi Kuwata, founder of SETCHU
To win, you just have to get past more than 2,500 applicants from around the world and a steely-eyed jury of designers including Marc Jacobs, Phoebe Philo and Jonathan Anderson.
“I’m still digesting it,” says Kuwata, who won the prize last year for his meticulously crafted brand, Setchu. “The business is really growing because of [the LVMH Prize]. I’m getting a good vibe.”
Setchu was established in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. For most, that would be a nightmare. But for Kuwata, 40, it was a meditative period away from the noise.
“I could really focus on making a collection and I had no doubt about my ideas,” he says. “The concept of the branding came naturally because I was able to cook it for a long time. I wasn’t scared about starting my business.”
The designer speaks with confidence. That lends itself to his bulging CV, which includes Givenchy, Savile Row and Gareth Pugh. The brand name, Setchu, comes from the Japanese phrase wayo setchu, translating to a balance between Japanese and Western concepts, and the genderless garments merge serene Japanese sartorial history with the active lifestyles of the metropolitan cities he has called home: London, Milan, New York and Paris. Pieces such as the boxy Origami shirt are minimal, yet punctuated by a pair of frisky lambskin leather trousers. A silk evening dress is draped over the body like liquid, while a wool and viscose suit, in blush pink, is inspired by rustic vintage workwear and the sublime cut of Savile Row.
From left: Camp wears SETCHU, Zhaoyi and Camp wear SETCHU
Kuwata was born in a village in Kyoto Prefecture. It was a simple yet idyllic childhood he mostly spent outdoors, getting his knees dirty in the nearby forests, climbing trees and swimming in rivers. “The only ‘toy’ I really had was a paper and pen,” he adds. “I loved drawing.” At a young age, he was taught to sew by his aunt, a clothing designer. But this wasn’t an immediate induction into fashion; it was an everyday skill that he wanted to perfect. “As a kid, I never got bored. Whatever I did, I wanted to get better at it and I wanted it to get more complicated. I still feel the same way now.”
Zhaoyi wears SETCHU
Then, as a young teenager, Kuwata and his family moved to the outskirts of Osaka, 30 miles from Kyoto. “I didn’t really know the word ‘creative’ existed at the time, but I wanted to produce something with my hands. I didn’t have to be a fashion designer; it could be a chef, or a ceramic artist… anything.”
At home, Kuwata started destroying garments only to repurpose them, becoming fascinated by fabrics. Even after seeing the fantastical advertisements of John Galliano, Alexander McQueen and Tom Ford in a magazine – the usual starting point of a budding designer’s adolescent awakening – Kuwata tried not to read too much into it. For him, clothing was about purpose and functionality. “I wanted [to design] ‘normal’ clothes,” he says. “I wasn’t from a wealthy family and I was given my brother’s clothes to wear, so I didn’t have clothes that fit perfectly. I suppose
Zhaoyi wears SETCHU
While growing up in Japan, home to the collective genius of designers such as Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto and Junya Watanabe, Kuwata wasn’t necessarily interested in their avant-garde flair, the poetic destruction of garments and the conceptual pieces that barely resemble something wearable. “Of course, I did think that Comme des Garçons was cool. But for me, I thought of it as art, rather than clothes I could wear.” This sense of functionality is a top priority in Setchu’s ethos.
At the age of 18, Kuwata got a job at Beams, a clothing brand with 160+ stores dotted around Japan’s major cities. He ended up working in the suit section and his boss started teaching him the ins and outs of fashion history during shifts. It was there that he first heard of Central Saint Martins, the London fashion school with alumni including McQueen, Galliano, Stella McCartney and Hussein Chalayan. He applied and was accepted onto a place on the foundation course.
But it was when he learned about Savile Row that his passion for design became something of an obsession. In Japan, a two-piece business suit is called sebiro, a loose phonetic interpretation that comes out as Savile Row – which he also learned about while working at Beams. “I had to go deep into the origins of Savile Row,” he says. “Suddenly, my dream was to work there, to see the best techniques.”
Camp wears SETCHU, Zhaoyi and Camp wear SETCHU
Moving to London aged 20, he deferred his place at Central Saint Martins and started interning at Savile Row’s renowned H Huntsman & Sons, finding work by holding up a handwritten sign while standing on the Mayfair strip. “I learned about sculpting shape fabrications, understanding the British dress code, how to behave in front of royalty,” he remembers, with enthusiasm. “It’s not something many people get to learn.” Four years later, he took up his place at CSM, enrolling on the foundation course. By the time he’d made it onto his second course – BA Womenswear – and the class was set with the task of making a pocket, he was miles ahead of his peers.
“I ended up teaching my teacher how to make a pocket,” he admits with sincerity. “I thought, ‘Do I really need to be in school all the time?’ [My tutor] said, ‘I think you should stay at Savile Row.’ He understood that I wasn’t cocky.”
The next three years were gruelling: Kuwata worked at Savile Row during the day, then went home and completed projects for his course, usually into the early hours. After graduation in 2011, Kuwata was approached by Thom Browne and Diane von Furstenberg, but decided to join esoteric designer Gareth Pugh’s small team; he wanted to understand how to operate a small business with a limited budget.
A few months in, Kanye West came knocking and Kuwata joined the Yeezy team – unsurprisingly, it was an entirely different experience from being with Pugh. “Obviously, there was no budget [at Pugh], so that was pretty cool to see,” he says. “[Kanye] was spending, like, $50 million a year at the time. I don’t even know how to spend one million in a year!”
Camp wears SETCHU
By 2012, Kuwata had moved to Paris to join Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy, where he learned all about the inner workings of the historic maison – from its meticulous craftsmanship to its big-budget runway shows – and witnessed first-hand the pressures of working as a creative director. Then he was approached by Tom Ford and, at the other end of the spectrum, Edun, a small-scale clothing brand founded by Bono and his wife Ali Hewson in 2005 (it ceased operations in 2018). He moved to New York to join Edun in 2013, where he introduced the brand to sustainable practices such as working with African artisans, as opposed to manufacturing in China, which they were initially doing. “I managed to change 95 per cent of production to Africa,” he says. “This gave me confidence. Once you start your own company, you need to be able to move people.”
“After [Edun], there were two things I was missing,” he says. “A commercial company where I’d make lots of money and a sportswear company.” Italian lifestyle brand Golden Goose came calling and Kuwata moved to its Milan base. After two years, he left to work on a project with The North Face, then returned to Italy. “I made the company grow fast and learned how to create a team. It ended up being worth a billion [pounds] when I left.”
There is a formula to Kuwata’s practice. It is guided by an intense urge to learn, practise, make mistakes and start over. By the time he started Setchu, Kuwata had immersed himself into the depths of fashion’s many building blocks: exquisite craftsmanship, emerging designers, minted celebrity brands, small-scale sustainability and commercial corporations.
When it was time to start his own company, he knew there were three principles he would have to stand by: functionality, craftsmanship and timelessness. “I grew up with this [Japanese] word, mottainai, which means [regretting] waste,” he says. “My mum and dad were born a few years after the Second World War – I just don’t think we have the right to waste.”
From left: Zhaoyi wears SETCHU, Zhaoyi and Camp wear SETCHU
Every part of his brand is meticulously thought out, from the recyclable packaging to the limited number of pieces that are made. And Setchu is seasonless, eschewing the ruthless fashion cycles in favour of drops that feel considered. Since winning the LVMH Prize last year, the brand has gone from a two-man operation to a team of six, with interns too.
In April, Kuwata went back to his Savile Row beginnings, teaming up with tailor Davies & Son – which is the Row’s oldest independent operating tailor – on the first designer collaboration in its 221-year history. Debuting
at the 60th Venice Biennale, the collection featured a double-breasted coat, a long white cashmere coat and a short jacket in black herringbone. The designs had all of Kuwata’s signatures: oversized tailoring, gender- neutral and functional in the pack-away features, while maintaining Davies & Son’s rigorous cutting standards. They were a meeting of modernity and tradition – a balance that drives the design ethos of Setchu.
“The Setchu customer is someone like me – someone who loves to know, loves to study and appreciates beauty and political noise,” Kuwata says. “To all those people who supported me even before I won, I feel so relieved that I can give something back to them. Those people believed in my talent.”
Taken from 10 Men Issue 60 – ECCENTRIC, FANTASY, ROMANCE – out now. Order your copy here.
SETCHU: THE MODERN TAILOR
Photographer STEFANO GALUZZI
Fashion Editor TANYA JONES
Text TJ SIDHU
Models ZHAOYI FAN at Crew Model Management and CAMP SCHILL at I Love Models Management
Hair SIMONE PRUSSO at Julian Watson Agency using Davines
Make-up CAMILLA ROMAGNOLI at Walter Schupfer Management
Digital operator MANOLA CASCIANO at Officina Otto
Lighting technician GAIA MENTOLLI
Fashion assistant ELENA LUTTICHAU
Props TWENTY TWENTY GARAGE
Casting SIMOBART CASTING
Production ELEONORA DENEGRI at Walter Schupfer Management
Post-production OFFICINA OTTO
Clothing and accessories throughout by SETCHU AW24/25
