With their snuggly insouciant line and tender colour palette, the clothes Tokyo-based designer Ryota Iwai has been making for a decade under the name Auralee are confident, elegant and global. Yet they remain seductively unknowable. Set against the technicolour, transdisciplinary funk of the reigning fashion cycle, they demand interpretation.
It would be too easy to file Auralee away under the catch-all term ‘quiet luxury’. The world that Iwai has built is much more about living life to the max – a wardrobe that, even when worn roughly, can be worn elegantly. The label’s tenth anniversary has crept up on its founder almost unnoticed. ‘When you’re running a brand, you just become so consumed by it and to be honest I hadn’t even realised it had been that long. I don’t think I’ve had the chance to reflect because looking back, a lot of it is a blur,’ Iwai says the night before leaving Tokyo for Paris, where he will present his S/S 2025 collection.
