Japanese designer Takahiro Miyashita, one of the most talented and buzzworthy designers to come out of Tokyo in recent years, is leaving the label he founded in 2010, known as The Soloist.
His fall 2025 collection titled “Black-and-White Realism,” which dropped quietly last February on social media, will be his last for the label. The Soloist will continue without its founder.
“We, the company and I, have decided to pursue different directions, each grateful for the other. While the decision may be marked by a sense of sadness and melancholy (it wouldn’t be The Soloist if it wasn’t), creative new beginnings for everyone in today’s times is rare and special,” he said in a statement.
Born in Tokyo in 1973, Miyashita launched his first brand, the avant-garde and punk-inspired Number (N)ine, at age 23, which participated in Paris Fashion Week in 2004.
He closed that line in 2009 to launch The Soloist the following year with the intention of building an independent brand that reflected his avant-garde perspective with a more functional spirit and a focus on craftsmanship.
“With a vision of simply crafting well-made clothes, every single piece was a musical note,” he said. “Fifteen years on, the time has come for what has become a symphony, to close.”
He called the fall 2025 collection his “coda,” and it will be delivered to retailers as planned.
In a post shared on Instragram, Miyashita hinted at a next act. “Rock and Roll never dies… The music keeps on playing, louder and louder. Just on a different, stage,” he wrote. “A new band, a new noise, catch me there.”
With The Soloist, he held a series of striking runway shows at Tokyo Fashion Week, Pitti Uomo in Milan and Paris Fashion Week over the years. The Soloist collections relied heavy on musical notes, with nods to rock-n-roll legends such as Kurt Cobain and David Bowie.
His looks were urban, often monochrome and sometimes apocalyptic, with a play on proportion and superposition of elements.
With a flair for the theatrical, WWD called Miyashita’s most recent runway show in Tokyo “achingly beautiful.”