Fashion is sometimes like soccer, in that you can't always rely on older players and expensive foreign imports. Until recently, Japan Fashion Week tended to bank on the same names from season to season. However, to keep the progression of new talent and new faces you eventually need to invest in young blood and, to use soccer parlance, "a youth team."

What seemed refreshing about this season was the prospect of a whole new gaggle of designers ready and willing to make the step up to a bigger stage. For once, credit goes to the JFW organizers for introducing initiatives such as the Shinmai Creators Project, which will bear fruit from next season. Plucking a handful of designers from fashion schools around the world, the lucky few — who include rising star Sachio Kawasaki from Central St. Martins in London — will be beneficiaries of "an entre into the Japanese fashion market."

JFW also joined forces this time around with the New Designer Fashion Grand Prix, now in its 25th year. It's a great idea in principle, as it involves some 13,000 young and ambitious designers applying from 38 countries around the world to be among just 30 chosen to show in Tokyo.