youth of japan; The next wave of visionary Asian designers is about to hit our shores.

Byline: Mark Holgate

New, when it comes to this quartet of names, is an entirely relative term. They may be unknown in America, but in Japan they are, if not exactly big, then certainly on the radar, having been in business anywhere from a few seasons to a full decade. It's not the first time, of course, that Tokyo designers have taken their time to make their mark here; lest we forget, Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo, et al. had been making provocative statements back home for years before they shocked Paris in the eighties with their torn, shredded, postapocalyptic chic. So why should we care about this group? Because the conceptualism we usually associate with Japanese design has been switched for highly thoughtful, quirkily cool looks that don't require a handbook on how to carry them off. And because, like younger, less-established talents anywhere else in the world, these designers carry the future in their hands.

1.limi feu

Just so you know, Feu is not her real name. It is actually Yamamoto, as in Yohji's daughter. She took the name after finding it in a French dictionary. She liked what it meant-"fire"-and felt that it symbolized igniting something new, something that was hers alone. (She is rather fond of symbols, whether metaphysical or just plain-old physical; she has a Sanskrit tattoo on her left middle finger that means "tiger," her Chinese birth sign.) Yet there's nothing fiery about her relationship with her dad. When she was at Tokyo's Bunka fashion school, she had to contend with constant references to her parentage. These days, she has happily come to terms with it. "He is my father, and I am his daughter, and that can't be changed," Yamamoto says, laughing. "Anyway, he was the one who taught me how to make clothes."

Yamamoto senior's tuition has paid off. While there are some parallel starting points in their work-white shirts, military fatigues, slouchy masculine suiting-where they take them is quite different. While her father might mix them up with archetypes of classic haute couture, she has an altogether more laid-back, streetwise, and, yes, younger vibe. This fall, there are black satin gabardine full jackets and puffball skirts, washed-denim parkas, and pretty cotton jersey dresses in sun-bleached pink-and-blue Tibetan-inspired prints with straps braided like ropes.

Yamamoto would love to visit Tibet and India one day, not least because she has long chosen to wear her designs with embroidered southern Asian tunics and skirts that she buys from "ethnic stores" in Yokohama. Currently, though, she has another destination in mind: Paris. Having shown during Tokyo Fashion Week ever since she set up her label seven years ago, she has elected to present her spring 2008 collection in the French capital. Her decision isn't entirely driven by plans for global expansion: Japan's fledgling designers can exist quite easily in their own country because of its voracious appetite for fashion. Yamamoto's choice carried greater personal significance. "It's impossible to gauge a Japanese audience because they never react," she says. "But in Paris, I get to see what the world thinks of what I do."

2.toga