Kiichiro Asakawa

Kiichiro Asakawa is a Japanese designer, born in Yamanashi Prefecture in 1986, and the founder and creative director of ssstein. After graduating from Tokyo Gakugei University, he spent six years at the Harajuku multi-brand store Naichichi as a sales assistant and buyer. Without formal fashion-school training, he studied clothing by dismantling vintage garments, including Ralph Lauren trench coats, to understand internal volume, balance and construction.

Asakawa opened the store carol in Shibuya in April 2016 and launched stein that July with three trouser models developed from the reconstruction of more than 300 vintage Levi’s 501s. The label expanded into full seasonal collections, wholesale exhibitions and a Tokyo runway before adopting the name ssstein from Autumn/Winter 2024. After winning the Fashion Prize of Tokyo 2025, he brought the brand to the official Paris menswear calendar and extended his work through global projects including Shiseido’s KASANE uniforms.

Asakawa begins with pattern, fabric and the behaviour of clothing in motion. He uses dropped shoulders, long vertical lines, reduced internal structure and carefully placed weight to make familiar coats, jackets and trousers shift around the body. The aim is not enlargement for its own sake, but a measured imbalance that gives the garment both stillness and movement.

His self-directed training remains visible in the way garments are taken apart, tested and revised. Textile treatments—resin coatings, sulphur dye, pigment rubbing, washing, airbrushing, oil finishing and drum dyeing—are selected for the atmosphere they produce over time. Asakawa also maintains a practical feedback loop through carol, where staff assess samples before production, while photography books guide colour and emotional tone. Technical research and daily wear remain inseparable within the final wardrobe.