It is a spring midday on March 13, and the opening event of Tokyo Creative Salon 2025 is unfolding at Tokyu Plaza Harajuku’s cultural hub, Harakado. The space, which will serve as the festival’s nerve center through March 23, is alive with the hum of conversation and the shuffle of designers, artists and industry insiders moving through immersive installations and fashion showcases.

Across 10 districts of Tokyo, from Shibuya to Marunouchi, parallel creative expressions are taking shape, but here — on the symbolic nexus between Tokyo street fashion and haute couture — the city’s restless, shape-shifting creative spirit is on full display.

Launched in 2020, Tokyo Creative Salon (TCS) has quickly cemented itself as one of Japan’s preeminent festivals of interdisciplinary creativity. Unlike the insular trade shows of Paris or the commercial juggernauts of Milan, TCS takes a more egalitarian approach, embedding design and fashion within the streetscape and transforming neighborhoods into living exhibitions where passersby are as much participants as they are spectators.