Introduction
Tsukasa Takabayashi is a Japanese fashion director, born in Tokyo, and co-founder of FAF (Fake As Flowers). Raised by a Congolese father and Japanese mother, he encountered fashion and music early and later studied at Dokkyo University, where he taught himself fashion design and graphic design. After graduation he worked as a buyer and sub-manager at a Tokyo select shop, building retail and merchandising experience alongside his involvement with the YouthQuake creative collective.
Takabayashi founded FAF with Kazuho Arai in 2018 and remains its director, responsible for the broader direction around the clothing. His remit has included brand positioning, communications, wholesale relationships and the interface between FAF and the music, retail and creative communities surrounding it. That role became increasingly visible as the label moved to a seasonal system, won the Tokyo Fashion Award 2024 and entered repeated Paris trade showrooms while retaining the independent cultural network from which it emerged.
Design ethos
Takabayashi’s practice is centred on direction: shaping the context in which design, graphics, music, merchandising and retail are read together. His background as a buyer and his work on YouthQuake graphics and artist merchandise give him a perspective that is both cultural and commercial, with attention to how a product moves from a close creative community into stores, collaborations and international wholesale without flattening its identity.
Within FAF, that approach supports a deliberately layered brand system. Seasonal clothing under THENEWCOMMUNE, experimental PROTOTYPE bags and the craft-focused REROW line each address a different kind of product, while collaborations connect the label to peers in fashion, footwear and music. Takabayashi’s contribution lies in keeping those activities legible as one project: Tokyo-rooted, unisex and open to changing formats, but held together by recurring visual language and a consistent network of collaborators.
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 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.
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
Takabayashi became FAF’s director at its 2018 foundation and remains responsible for direction around the label. His work encompasses positioning, communications and commercial presentation as the brand developed from irregular drops into a seasonal and internationally wholesaled business.
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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