Omotesandō in Tokyo is a neighbourhood for fashion pilgrimage – its main stretch has been home to flagship stores for Comme des Garçons, Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto since the 1980s. But those once rarefied brands are now global entities. In a side street nearby is the only Christopher Nemeth shop in the world, selling the work of one of the most innovative designers of the London post-punk scene. It’s a diamond in the rough – independent, atmospheric, edgy, often chaotic. Every surface is covered in the well-worn, dark, richly geometric and witchy wallpaper created by Nemeth in 1989. There are garments made with a fabric created to feel like canvas used for oil paintings, and boards full of plaid and dogtooth badges, ready to customise anything to which you can pin them.
The shop’s exterior © Mark C O’Flaherty
While you can buy selected Nemeth garments in branches of Dover Street Market, this is where obsessives come for seasonal one-off and limited pieces, including bolero-length jackets made from Nemeth’s No 1 pattern, often bearing his distinctive Isle Rope print (from ¥93,000, about £430), and variations on his curved-leg jeans with XL turn-ups and distressed knee details (from about £130).
