Masayuki Ino | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1979 (age 46–47) Gunma Prefecture, Japan |
| Education | Tokyo Mode Gakuen |
| Occupations |
|
| Label | Doublet |
| Awards | Winner, LVMH Prize (2018) |
| Website | doublet-jp |
Masayuki Ino (Japanese: 井野 将之, Hepburn: Ino Masayuki; born 1979) is a Japanese fashion designer and businessman. He founded the streetwear label Doublet in 2012 with patternmaker Takashi Murakami, and in 2018 became the first Asian designer to win the LVMH Prize.
Ino was born in 1979 in Gunma Prefecture, and studied at the Tokyo Mode Gakuen. He then worked under Mihara Yasuhiro, where he headed footwear and accessory design. He was described as a "long-term protege" of Yasuhiro.
In 2012, Ino founded the ready-to-wear brand Doublet with Takashi Murakami, a patternmaker who had been his colleague at Mihara Yasuhiro. The brand took its name from the word puzzle invented by Lewis Carroll, and he set out an idea of "daily wear with a feel of disorder". His fashion designs are gender-neutral. Its first collection debuted for spring 2013.
His signature style has been described by Women's Wear Daily as deconstructed and layered embroidery. He's also known for his creative presentations of outfits, from clothes sold in plastic goblets to artistic hangers. He's described his designs as "fun".
He has collaborated with Valentino, mixing his style with the Valentino logo, and has collaborated with bag company NewNeu to create a skateboard-shaped bag covered in velcro. His collaboration with shoe brand ASICS was intended to look like cardboard.
He won the professional division of the Tokyo New Designer Fashion Award in 2013 and the Tokyo Fashion Award in 2017; the latter brought exhibitions in Paris and Doublet's first runway show, held during the Fall 2017 season of Tokyo Fashion Week. He has been a member of the Business of Fashion 500 since 2022. His outfits have been worn by Kendall Jenner, Travis Scott, and Liam Payne.
He was awarded the LVMH Prize in 2018, becoming the first Asian to earn the prize; the win came with a €300,000 grant and a year of mentorship from LVMH. He was seen as an unexpected choice, due to his low profile outside of Japan, but was selected due to his creativity in both his outfits and their packaging: in the final round, he presented noodle pots that released T-shirts after being filled with water.
Doublet's first Paris Fashion Week presentation came for Fall 2020, a show that turned a Paris venue into a make-believe Tokyo family restaurant, with displays of plastic food and street-cast models carrying trays down the runway. Rather than pursuing wide wholesale distribution, Ino expanded the brand through pop-ups at department stores such as Dover Street Market and Barneys New York, where he built a fake festival noodle stand to sell clothes. By 2022, Doublet's stockists included SSENSE, 10 Corso Como, and Lane Crawford.
Forced back to Tokyo by the COVID-19 pandemic, Doublet staged its Spring 2021 show in a French restaurant turned haunted mansion, where a small live audience wearing virtual reality goggles watched models made up as zombies. For his Fall 2022 collection, inspired by the Tokyo Paralympics, he staged an "analogue metaverse" on a full-size replica of the Shibuya Crossing, with models of different body types wearing identical masks and pink wigs.
His Fall/Winter 2023 collection featured an amusement park and fantastical looks which included, in the words of Hypebeast, "furry looks and voguing mice". His Fall 2024 collection drew on a haunted house. His SS25 collection was inspired by anime and the idea of an oshi. His Fall/Winter 2025 was inspired by villains including the Cheshire Cat and The Joker, and used darker themes than his typical. His Spring 2026 collection featured haybale seating. His Fall 2026 collection, titled "Air", featured balloons and bubble wrap, and used a yarn developed by the Japanese materials firm Plaisir that is made from captured CO2. His Spring 2027 collection featured a theme of people at three different times: morning, noon, and night. The show teased a new collaboration with Puma and introduced pieces made with recycled charcoal, banana fiber, and wood.
He's also known for his social media presence and the demonstrations of his outfits, including demonstrations featuring individuals in drag.