The Extraordinary Voyage of Captain Peach
In the classical Japanese folktale Momotaro, a boy born from a peach is found floating down a river by an elderly couple. He explains he is a gift from the gods, and will be their son. He grows into a strong young man, and, setting out to defeat the demons of Onigashima, or “Demon Island”, is joined by a dog, a monkey, and a pheasant, who help him in exchange for millet dumplings. Together they defeat the demons, returning home with treasure and the demon chief as a captive.
APUJAN’s latest collection captures the fantasy of this voyage, through tailored pieces that capture the floating rhythm of the river, flowing dresses adorned with 3-D casts of mythical creatures and horned headdresses, and a playful dress made of cartoon drawings on scrolls, a visual retelling of Momotaro’s birth. A cinematic, poetic narrative stretched across the catwalk, where fantasy met fabric and imagination became a form of rebellion.
Prints of swirls, waves and peaches anchored APUJAN’s signature design style of lightweight knits, structured and sculptured fabrics, and ethereal fabrics. Across the 33 key looks – highlights of a 100+ strong collection – the designs balanced myth and modernity.
Hidden narratives were embedded in the fabrics, all revealing elements of fantasy through the lens of contemporary life. Unfolding these details revealed ghosts, romanticism, tradition, and identity, tender reminders of the courage and power of imagination itself.
The collection also leans into a kind of delicate nostalgia in the anxiety of our modern mage, weaving together fragments of East Asian campus life with the poetry of digital longing. Small details carry heavy weight: a shirt with its second button loosened in a quiet confession, handwritten letters scrawled across fabric, even the timestamp of a message—“seen”—appears embroidered, revealing a private moment of suspended intimacy. These motifs give the clothes a delicate ache, caught between the romance of paper and ink and the flickering immediacy of a phone screen.
As the final looks swept across the runway, the concluding chapters of this collection reminded us that clothing can carry stories, and that garments, like myths, can shift between the real and the impossible.
The cinematic staging, the folkloric echoes, and the poetic silhouettes all built towards a romantic and otherworldy vision where fashion became a portal where courage, identity, and resistance were not abstract ideas but living presences woven into fabric.
What emerged was a dreamscape of clothing – a romantic and otherworldly fantasy where myth and memory blurred. Each piece became a page from an unwritten story: dresses that seemed to float like whispered incantations, knits that held the rhythm of rivers, tailoring that carried the weight of legends. Literature and folklore flickered at the edges, yet the garments spoke in the language of the present, conjuring courage and identity and dreams.
APUJAN created an invitation to step into that dream, to carry the myth forward, and to wear imagination as the ultimate form of resistance.
