Introduction
Hiroaki Sueyasu is a Japanese fashion designer born in Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture, in 1976. He trained at Omura Beauty Fashion College and moved to Tokyo after graduating in 1997, working for several years as a hairdresser in Harajuku. In 2002 he left for London, where backstage work and an immersion in punk, club and independent fashion led him to teach himself garment construction by dismantling and remaking vintage clothes.
Sueyasu began selling those pieces as HIRO and staged an off-schedule London presentation in 2004. After returning to Japan in 2006, he developed HIRO from one-off remakes into a manufactured unisex label, opened HIRO SHOP and co-founded HONEY’S DEAD with Taisuke Irie in 2012. He also supervised the occult-inflected project LIBER OZ from 2013, experience that expanded his work from personal design into retail and team-based direction.
He ended HIRO and founded KIDILL in 2014, debuting the new label at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo. Sueyasu has remained KIDILL’s founder and artistic director throughout its development from Tokyo runway label to official Paris Fashion Week menswear participant. His work has received the DHL Designer Award and the Tokyo New Designer Fashion Grand Prix, while the label’s current practice continues between Tokyo production and Paris presentation.
Design ethos
Sueyasu’s method grew from self-taught reconstruction. Early HIRO pieces began with vintage garments cut apart to expose their internal logic; KIDILL retained that instinct but transferred it into industrial patterns, luxury textiles and formal tailoring. He often starts with recognisable forms—MA-1 jackets, work trousers, tartan suits, elongated shirts or oversized knits—and disturbs their proportion, finish or cultural reading.
Punk is a personal lineage rather than a decorative theme. Sueyasu combines British music and image archives with Japanese weaving, sewing, dyeing and surface work, allowing photographs, slogans and grotesque figures to sit inside carefully developed garments. The resulting silhouettes move between severe tailoring and adolescent excess: dropped shoulders, engulfing sleeves, layered kilts, bondage details, animal masks, armour and deliberately damaged surfaces.
His collaborative process preserves distinct functions. Photographers and artists control images; musicians contribute artwork, sound or performance; companies such as EDWIN, Dickies, UMBRO and Alpha Industries supply category expertise; specialist studios develop knitwear, millinery, jewellery and tailoring. Sueyasu uses those contributions to deepen construction and presentation while retaining responsibility for the collection as a whole.
Disclaimer
Career history
2022
KIDILL staged its first physical runway on the official Paris Fashion Week menswear calendar for Spring/Summer 2023 after two digital seasons. The transition materially strengthened the label’s international sales, press and show-production structure without relocating its creative and corporate base from Tokyo.
2021
KIDILL entered the official Paris Fashion Week menswear schedule for Autumn/Winter 2021 through a digital presentation. The change formalised the label’s Paris presentation structure while its creative and corporate base remained in Tokyo; it followed an earlier independent Paris presentation in the Autumn/Winter 2019 period.
2019
KIDILL presented independently in Paris during the Autumn/Winter 2019 menswear period. The event established the label’s first sustained Paris presentation and market presence, while remaining distinct from its later entry onto the official Paris Fashion Week schedule.
2018
KIDILL received the Tokyo New Designer Fashion Grand Prix Best Award for its 2018 development. The award recognised the label after its shift into immersive presentations and formal archival-image collaborations, strengthening its position before the move towards Paris.
2017
KIDILL began a sustained archive-collaboration method with Dennis Morris and Public Image Ltd. imagery for Spring/Summer 2018. The project shifted the label from general punk reference towards credited photographic archives, a method continued with Sheila Rock, Jamie Reid and later artist and estate relationships.
2016
KIDILL ROOM opened in Jingumae in 2016 as the label’s controlled Tokyo retail environment. The store gave Sueyasu a direct setting for mainline collections, collaborations, archival display and contact with the fashion and music community beyond seasonal wholesale.
2015
Hiroaki Sueyasu received the eighth DHL Designer Award for KIDILL’s Autumn/Winter 2015–16 work. The recognition gave the young label institutional support and international validation during its difficult first years on the Tokyo calendar.
2014
Sueyasu assumed continuing artistic direction of KIDILL from its foundation. He has retained collection authorship through the brand’s Tokyo years, digital Paris transition and physical Paris runway period, with no supported transfer of creative control.
2014
Hiroaki Sueyasu established KIDILL in Tokyo in 2014 after ending his precursor label HIRO. The new brand transferred his punk and remake background into a more rigorous system of tailoring, textile development and official seasonal presentation.
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