What to know | GEIDAI FASHION at Ueno Station: Different Paths Through Design, Architecture and Craft

CREATIVE HUB UENO "es" in Tokyo Ueno Station launches "GEIDAI FASHION: Different Paths into Fashion", which will be on display from October 20 to November 22, 2026. It is curated by Yoshinari Nishio, a professor at Tokyo University of the Arts. Admission is free. The exhibition brings design, architecture, craftsmanship and contemporary art together, making "fashion" a viewing angle that connects different creative methods.

Cover image: 西尾美也

Arts majors and fashion are not just a matter of clothing majors

The exhibition looks back at the genealogy of creators who came from Tokyo University of the Arts, from Eiko Ishioka’s clothing and visual work, Kodue Hibino and other clothing creations, to Hiroko Takahashi’s dyeing and weaving, Noritaka Tatehana’s transformation of traditional crafts, and Ryunosuke Okazaki’s practice across design and art, showing how different majors enter fashion.

The point here is not to put all works into the same category, but to look at what materials they use and what bodies or scenes they confront. Clothes can be commodities, or they can be connected to performance, space, craft research or character relationships; different ways of understanding will change the way of viewing.

Five young creators bring different materials and methods

This time, the works of five creators, 石岡紅緒, 海田通孝, Kitagawa Sana, Kim Sohee and YURIAJURIA, are displayed. Their backgrounds cover design, art, architecture, cutting-edge artistic expression and craftsmanship. The exhibition simultaneously interviews the creators and teachers involved in educational research, juxtaposing the work with the thinking that shaped it.

Viewers can select a work to see how it handles surface, proportion, or presentation, and then read about the author's background. If you first treat everything as daily clothing, you may ignore the questions it poses to space or materials; conversely, if you only treat the work as an artistic concept, you may also miss the specific connection with the body wearing it.

Open interviews, making the creative process part of the exhibition

During the conference, it is also planned to invite Tsumura Kosuke and Yamagata Yoshikazu to conduct a public interview. The work display provides visible results, while the interview may present choices, attempts, and educational background. The two contents can complement each other; the specific session time and participation method should still be confirmed according to the organizer's announcement.

For design students or people trying to get acquainted with working in fashion, interviews can help pay attention to how questions are asked, rather than just noting which fabric was used in the end. The process by which different professions establish their methods is often more helpful in understanding how creation continues than a single work title.

An art stop next to Ueno Station, check the opening hours first

The venue is located at Ueno 7-1-1, Taito-ku, Tokyo, near the Asakusa Exit of JR Ueno Station. It is open from 11:00 to 19:00, with last admission at 18:45. It is closed on Mondays. If Monday is a national holiday, it will be closed the next day. Free admission to the exhibition means transportation arrangements still need to be based on the actual departure point and route planning.

Consult CREATIVE HUB UENO official exhibition informationConfirm the day’s opening and interview arrangements. If your itinerary originally passes through Ueno, you might as well set aside a full period of time to look at the works slowly, making the station not only a transfer point, but also an entrance to understand how fashion and other arts intersect.