Yusuke Takahashi

Yusuke Takahashi is the founder, chief executive and creative director of CFCL, short for “Clothing For Contemporary Life”. He established the company in February 2020 after leading Issey Miyake Men for roughly six years. CFCL is recognisable for computer-programmed knitwear—especially the bell-shaped POTTERY dresses—but Takahashi has made the company's measurement, labour and financing part of the design argument too. (CFCL; Vogue Japan)

In August 2026 he received the 44th Mainichi Fashion Grand Prix, five years after its newcomer prize. The award recognised not just an identifiable silhouette but a business that connects production, sale and circulation. That distinction fits Takahashi: his public language moves easily between a knitted loop, a carbon calculation and a plan for international growth, without treating business as the embarrassing machinery behind creativity. (Zoom Up Collection; Pen)

Architecture before fashion

Takahashi was born in Tokyo in 1985. His grandfather was an architect, and childhood time in his house first made architecture seem like the natural profession. An exhibition of Issey Miyake's work shifted that ambition towards clothes, where structure could move with a person. He later completed Bunka Fashion Graduate University's programme in 2010 and joined Miyake Design Studio that year. (Vogue Japan; CFCL)

In 2013, aged twenty-seven, Takahashi was appointed designer of Issey Miyake Men. His first collection was Spring/Summer 2014, which explains why Japanese sources variously write that his design tenure began in 2013 or 2014. He led the team for about six years and left Miyake Design Studio in 2020. That role was Issey Miyake Men, not Homme Plissé Issey Miyake: the two menswear lines coexisted and had different design structures. (WWDJAPAN; METI)

At Issey Miyake Men, Takahashi worked inside a house where textile research and engineering could generate form rather than merely decorate it. The experience taught him how a design team, factory knowledge and presentation can operate together at international scale. When he left, the company later suspended Issey Miyake Men after Autumn/Winter 2020; that closure should not be confused with his founding of CFCL or with Homme Plissé's continued collections. (Vogue Japan; AFFECTUS)

Knit-ware, not just knitwear

CFCL's debut collection, VOL.1, used the theme “Knit-ware”. The hyphen opens “wear” into “ware”: a made thing, a vessel and, eventually, an architectural container. Takahashi chose knit because one programmed machine can produce three-dimensional shape with little cutting waste, while stretch can accommodate different bodies. Most pieces outside explicitly shaped dresses and skirts were initially sized by height rather than gender. (Vogue Japan)

The central technology is the computer-controlled WHOLEGARMENT flat-knitting machine developed by Shima Seiki. Conventional cut-and-sew production knits or weaves cloth, cuts pattern pieces from it and stitches those pieces together. Whole-garment knitting can build the body and sleeves continuously from yarn, reducing seams and allowing the programme to place stretch, density and volume where they are needed. It is not automatic design: a technician and designer must translate the silhouette into knit structure and machine instructions. (Senken Shimbun; Vogue Japan)

POTTERY has remained the clearest result since VOL.1. Tight vertical ribs hold the torso; below them, engineered increases release a rounded skirt like the wall of a vessel. The dress arrives from the machine with its volume already knitted rather than cut into gores and sewn. Small changes to yarn, rib spacing, length and colour keep the family active across volumes. A POTTERY shape seen in a recent shop is therefore not necessarily a first-season object. (Vogue Japan; CFCL)

The approach is sculptural but deliberately domestic. Recycled-polyester dresses can be washed in a household machine, stretch with movement and pack without demanding the handling of fragile evening wear. Takahashi's “contemporary life” is not a single lifestyle invented by the brand. He describes it as a definition that must change through conversations with the people who wear the clothes. (Vogue Japan; CFCL)

Sustainability with numbers attached

CFCL carried out a life-cycle assessment for a VOL.1 POTTERY dress. LCA, or life-cycle assessment, estimates environmental impact from raw material and yarn through manufacture, sale, use and disposal under a stated boundary. CFCL published a result of 4.99 kg CO2e for one short-sleeved dress and disclosed that small components such as buttons and elastic were outside that calculation. That caveat matters: a useful number shows its limits. (CFCL)

The same report calculated that one dress reused material equivalent to approximately eighteen discarded PET bottles. It also documented Global Recycled Standard-certified inputs and an upcycling project that used surplus yarn prepared to absorb colour variation in mass production. These measures do not make polyester impact-free; they make particular material choices traceable enough to compare and improve. (CFCL)

For VOL.4, CFCL worked with a partner knit factory to move production equipment towards electricity from renewable sources and reported reductions of up to thirty per cent for thirty-eight POTTERY products compared with its previous production. In July 2022 it became Japan's first apparel brand certified as a B Corporation. B Corp is a third-party assessment of company governance and social and environmental performance, not a permanent award for one collection; recertification and continued evidence are part of its meaning. (CFCL; CFCL corporate history)

This transparency is also where a biography must resist easy praise. A lower-waste knitting process still consumes yarn and energy; recycled polyester still originates in a plastics system; a carbon figure depends on its boundary. CFCL's contribution is not a claim of purity. It is the attempt to put measurements next to design decisions and publish enough method for those claims to be examined. (CFCL; CFCL)

Building a company around the clothes

Takahashi founded CFCL as a company from the start rather than attaching a label to a freelance studio. The organisation appointed a chief sustainability officer early, sought B Corp certification, and paired Takahashi's creative direction with Naohiko Matsuura's operational and financial leadership. Its stated ambition is international and commercial: environmental work is meant to survive growth, not remain a virtue available only at tiny scale. (Vogue Japan; SMRJ)

Recognition arrived quickly. CFCL received the 2021 Mainichi newcomer and Shiseido award and the Fashion Prize of Tokyo 2022. It joined the official Paris Fashion Week calendar in 2022, opened CFCL Omotesando that October, established CFCL Knitting Lab. in 2024, formed CFCL France in January 2025 and opened a street-level Osaka store that March. These are stages in building control over development and presentation, not merely a list of addresses. (CFCL; WWDJAPAN)

The 2026 Mainichi grand prize marked the difference between promising debut and sustained system. By then POTTERY was an established family rather than a novelty, and the company had spent five years widening what programmed knit could do. A brand book, CFCL: Clothing for Contemporary Life, was scheduled for publication by Rizzoli in September 2026, giving the project its first book-length record. (Zoom Up Collection)

Reading and dating Takahashi's work

For Issey Miyake, first identify the line. Takahashi designed Issey Miyake Men from the appointment announced in 2013 through his 2020 departure, with collections from SS2014. A Homme Plissé label does not make a garment his design, even if it was produced during those years. The shared company and interest in movement have encouraged frequent resale misattribution. (WWDJAPAN; AFFECTUS)

CFCL names its collections by numbered VOL. rather than only Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter. POTTERY continues across them, so silhouette is not a sufficient date. Use the interior product code, fibre composition and exact colour, then compare them with CFCL's collection and product records. A seller calling any ribbed dress “Vol.1 Pottery” is making a date claim that needs a match. (Vogue Japan; CFCL)

Material statements need the same precision. A recycled-polyester composition supports a fibre claim, not a claim that the individual garment produced no waste or has the original VOL.1 LCA result. CFCL has changed yarns, energy inputs and calculations between volumes. When documenting a piece, record its volume, model name, composition and country of manufacture separately; then attach only the sustainability data published for that product or programme. (CFCL; CFCL)

References

• Itoi Kuriyama. “CFCL no Takahashi Yusuke—kiru mono o tsutsumikomi, jishin no vision to kyomei shiau gendai no fuku.” Vogue Japan, 15 October 2021.
• Kazufumi Takahashi. “CFCL Takahashi Yusuke interview: genjitsu no shakai no naka de, ima motomerareru fukuzukuri o mezasu.” Pen, 17 June 2022.
• “Corporate Information.” CFCL. Accessed 11 September 2026.
• Yusuke Takahashi. “Timeless na shozo.” CFCL.
• “Consciousness Vol.1.” CFCL.
• “Consciousness Vol.4.” CFCL.
• “Shinshun taidan: Shima Seiki Shima Mitsuhiro shacho × CFCL Takahashi Yusuke designer.” Senken Shimbun, 1 January 2021.
• “Takahashi Yusuke no CFCL ga jushō—dai-4-kai Fashion Prize of Tokyo.” WWDJAPAN, 1 September 2021.
• “Korekara no fashion o kangaeru kenkyukai—iin meibo.” Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2022.
• “Apparel sangyo o henkaku shi, sekai e—‘knit’ de idomu 100-oku kigyo e no chosen.” Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, 26 February 2026.
• “2026-nen dai-44-kai Mainichi Fashion Taisho jushosha kettei.” Zoom Up Collection, 31 August 2026.