Introduction
Kazuho Arai is a Japanese designer from Toyama Prefecture and co-founder of FAF (Fake As Flowers). He moved to Tokyo at eighteen and became involved with the YouthQuake creative collective while studying at Senshu University, teaching himself fashion design, graphic design and sewing alongside music and DJ work. After university he worked at Stüssy and performed with Tsukasa Takabayashi as the two-person DJ unit Fake Ass Flowers before the pair founded FAF in 2018.
At FAF, Arai is responsible for design. His work carried the project from early DIY and graphic-led releases into remade garments, a formal seasonal system from Autumn/Winter 2021 and, in March 2024, the label’s first show-format runway at Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO. Outside the main collections he has also supervised costume production for musical artists including Awich, while FAF’s collaborations and specialist lines have given him a wider field for reconstructed textiles, bags, footwear and craft-led product.
Design ethos
Arai works from the contrast between Tokyo’s dense urban environment and ideas of nature, spirituality and escape. Military garments, workwear and classic American casual clothing supply practical archetypes, while references to the 1960s flower movement and hip-hop culture feed the label’s graphics and attitude. His designs favour loose utility proportions, visible pockets, modular details and garments that can absorb wear without losing their identity.
Surface and construction are equally important. FAF’s collections use Japanese denim, garment dyeing, tie-dye, block printing, distressing and reconstruction, while REROW pushes further into vintage cloth, antique Kantha quilting, patchwork and specialist black dyeing. PROTOTYPE bags translate the same interest into objects intended to change through daily use. Across these systems, Arai treats imperfection, repair and material ageing as active design tools.
Disclaimer
Career history
2024
Tokyo Fashion Award support brought FAF into four Paris trade-showroom campaigns between 16 January 2024 and 30 June 2025. These B2B presentations expanded the label’s international wholesale activity during Paris Men’s Fashion Week without constituting Paris runway shows.
2023
FAF was announced as a winner of the Tokyo Fashion Award 2024 on 4 September 2023, with Arai and Takabayashi named as the label’s designer and director. The award supplied business and showroom support that led directly into repeated Paris wholesale presentations from 2024.
2022
On 1 June 2022, the label formally changed the expanded form of its name from Fake Ass Flowers to FAF (Fake As Flowers). The change revised the public identity of the existing brand without creating a new company, relaunch or second fashion label.
2021
With Autumn/Winter 2021, FAF replaced its irregular drop model with a twice-yearly seasonal ready-to-wear system. THENEWCOMMUNE became the main seasonal framework while the PROTOTYPE bag series and the craft-led reconstruction practice that would be known as REROW broadened the product architecture.
2019
FAF collaborated with the archive collective EIGHT DAYS A WEEK at PULP Harajuku from 1–10 November 2019, reconstructing vintage garments from 1990s Ura-Hara labels into one-off pieces. The project made FAF’s relationship to an earlier Tokyo streetwear lineage tangible through the clothes themselves.
2019
FAF staged POP UP SHOP 0001 at Pigalle Gallery in Shibuya on 26–27 October 2019, its first standalone physical retail activation. Reconstructed MA-1 jackets, remade denim and multi-way utility pieces moved the label decisively towards cut-and-sew development and intensive garment remaking.
2019
FAF collaborated with MIYAGIHIDETAKA in September 2019 for a limited Mukta / Sal project using vintage bandanas and East African Kanga cloth. The work advanced the label’s interest in one-off textile reconstruction and introduced a more personal material vocabulary into its early streetwear practice.
2018
FAF released its first formal commercial apparel capsule on 28 November 2018 under the THENEWCOMMUNE concept. Hoodies, sweatshirts, T-shirts and small accessories translated the pair’s club and DIY identity into a direct-to-consumer fashion release.
2018
Arai became FAF’s designer at its 2018 foundation and remains responsible for the clothing design. His tenure spans the project’s early drops, its 2021 move to twice-yearly collections and its later runway, showroom and collaboration work.
2018
Kazuho Arai and Tsukasa Takabayashi founded the apparel label FAF in Tokyo in 2018 after using the Fake Ass Flowers name for their DJ unit and early DIY clothing. The brand began with Arai responsible for design and Takabayashi responsible for direction.
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