ALMOSTBLACK

ALMOSTBLACK was founded in 2017 in Tokyo by Japanese designer Kensuke Nakaya as a contemporary avant-garde menswear brand specifically focused on what Nakaya described as 'a deliberately-monochromatic, deliberately-architectural Japanese-tailoring vocabulary anchored almost exclusively to a single dominant colour: a deliberately-near-black washed-charcoal that gives the brand its name.' The brand has been one of the more conceptually rigorous post-2017 Tokyo-anchored avant-garde menswear brands. The ALMOSTBLACK vocabulary settled around several recurring elements: deconstructed Japanese-cotton and wool tailored separates with deliberately-architectural proportional construction, hand-printed silk and cotton shirts with deliberately-monochromatic graphic-motif references, the brand's iconic technical-fabric outerwear with deliberately-near-black washed-charcoal construction, deconstructed denim with deliberately-monochromatic surface treatment, and a colour palette anchored almost-exclusively to the iconic ALMOSTBLACK near-black washed-charcoal (the brand's defining colour), washed-black, oxblood, ecru, plus the brand's recurring use of natural-undyed and acid-dye-treated near-black tones. The brand is independent and held by Nakaya. ALMOSTBLACK presents at Tokyo Fashion Week and has been a continuous presence on the Tokyo and Paris menswear schedules. The brand distributes through Dover Street Market, GR8, the broader Japanese department-store network (Beams, United Arrows, Ships, Nepenthes), and a small set of carefully chosen avant-garde-luxury specialty retailers globally including SSENSE and MATCHES. The brand has been one of the more conceptually rigorous post-2017 Tokyo-anchored 'monochromatic-architectural-menswear' brands, with the deliberately-near-black single-colour positioning specifically anchoring the brand inside the Yohji Yamamoto and Julius constellation of monochromatic-Japanese-avant-garde menswear designers.