Highlights From Onitsuka Tiger’s A/W 2023 Collection

The Japanese fashion house presents a collection focusing more on an urban aesthetic while maintaining its playful spirit. 

Japanese label Onitsuka Tiger, known for its unique DNA that blends sports with fashion and innovation, recently unveiled its Autumn/Winter 2023 collection at the prestigious Milan Fashion Week. This time, the new collection’s “Urban Layering” theme shows the Japanese culture that strongly emphasises layering your clothing, as its name suggests.

Put simply, Onitsuka Tiger’s creative director Andrea Pompilio has captured the essence of the Japanese tradition — particularly donning a kimono that involves layering clothing of varying densities, from the lightest undergarments to the actual kimono and then fastened with a broad belt — and bypassing it via the brand’s athletic DNA, through the flowing tailoring for Autumn/Winter 2023.

Design-wise, the result marks an essential step for the brand, which presents a collection that focuses more on an urban aesthetic while maintaining its playful spirit. Case in point: There are oversized coats made of needle-punched crafted faux fur, tailored coats made of cosy melton with a see-through effect with visible padding detail on the back and large knitted martingales. The collection also features oversized three-button jackets and coats that use a crisp melton, close-fitting, almost downhill suits and oversized turtlenecks made of mohair-touch knit.

What’s more, ribbed and tight silhouette tank tops are combined, while the sash belts and drawstrings designed into the waist of georgette and chiffon dresses emphasise femininity, and long and short lengths have flowing silhouettes. There is also a lightweight quilted chiffon see-through shirt with visible padding that embellishes outerwear.

Furthermore, the unique standout pieces for the show are arguably the collaboration with Zanter — a brand famous for producing the first domestic down-filled outerwear as a pioneer of down wear in Japan — through the eye-catching volume in its mega anoraks. Of particular note, since these items can also be worn on each other to make the silhouette voluminous but less bulky, the layering of the bottoms completes the look with baggy nylon and melton trousers and quilted chiffon shorts with see-through padding layered over precious boxer shorts.

Rounding up Onitsuka Tiger’s Autumn/Winter 2023 collection is the colour palette for the season, as it showcases signature black, to which shades of grey, beige and flashes of pumpkin orange. The new Onitsuka Tiger logo further enhances this visual with bolder lettering in yellow and black, the brand’s signature colours, in the footwear. This final highlight of the collection presents ankle and below-the-knee leather boots in an elegant but light way and trainers that evolve into outdoor-style shoes hybridised by partially hollowed soles.