“In my house, there’s only two things: books and clothes,” Ayumi Nagaishi, 48, said. She shares the home with her husband and daughter, both of whom have had to cede some of their closet space to her, she added. “Of course, I take space.”
Almost all of her clothes are from the brand Comme des Garçons, where she has worked since 2003. She was dressed in layered shirts from the label and an asymmetrical red jacket (which matched the color of her socks) on the Monday in November when we met in the Ginza section of Tokyo, a famous shopping district. She had come to the area to go to Dover Street Market, the store owned by Comme des Garçons, with a V.I.P. customer.
The store, where she is a visual stylist, has an ambience centered around the concept of “beauty and chaos,” she said, traits that were also reflected in the ensemble she was wearing. For her, choosing attire is “a very instinctual thing,” she added. “If I touch the clothes,” she said, “my brain shakes. They speak to me and I choose.”
Simbarashe Cha is a Times photographer and visual columnist documenting style and fashion around the world.
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