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Photos by Kazuhiro Nogi. Video by Caroline Gardin
Having fled Myanmar for Japan with his parents as a child, Shibuya Zarny began his modeling career in Tokyo and later made clothes for royalty.
“Fashion is an art that has allowed me to survive,” the designer, whose brand recently held a 10th anniversary show in Bangkok, told AFP.
The runway looks featured nods to Southeast Asian design, from leaf and eye motifs to jewelry worn under colorful jackets by shirtless male models.
Zarny's parents arrived in Japan as political refugees in 1993, when he was eight years old. As a teenager, dressing stylishly became a way for him to avoid being bullied.
His mother first taught him to sew and, very quickly, Zarny, with his slender figure and intense gaze, was spotted as a model on a dance floor in the capital.
“Back then, we didn’t have Instagram,” he recalls. So, to see and be seen, he frequented bars, arcades and novelty photo booths called purikura.
Zarny often visited Shibuya, the youth district he later took as his first name.
“At that time, Shibuya was really dangerous. There was a whole underground scene” with yakuza gangsters, he said.
As his career took off, Zarny launched his eponymous brand in 2011, a year before finally obtaining Japanese citizenship.
The young designer donated 70 longyi – a traditional garment that is tied at the waist – to Burmese democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
She wore a lilac dress to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012, a moment that Zarny said “changed my life.”
Alongside his podium efforts in subsequent years, Zarny played the role of mediator between Japan and Myanmar.
He even accompanied Japanese Princess Yoko of Mikasa – dressed in a Zarny original – on a visit there in 2019.
Today, as Aung San Suu Kyi remains in detention since the 2021 coup in Myanmar, she is raising funds to help others flee her homeland.
When the junta took power, Zarny received a flood of messages asking for help.
“Many refugees from Myanmar have arrived in Thailand, at the border,” said the 39-year-old.
He then took action, working with the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) and organizing events in Tokyo.
“Burmese people have lost their pride, they are sad. So I want to show my power in fashion, give them confidence and a brave heart.”
Zarny's professional connections in Myanmar were scattered – just one of the challenges he has faced in recent years.
The Covid-19 pandemic put a stop to jet-setting parties, decimating demand for his expensive clothes and eventually forcing him to abandon his showroom in Tokyo's upscale Omotesando district.
One of his main clients, politician Shinzo Abe, for whom he made suits, resigned as prime minister in 2020 and was shot dead two years later.
But Zarny is no stranger to new beginnings and has branched out into interior design.
He also made a suit for the captain of the refugee Olympic team for the upcoming Paris Games, where he hopes to one day present a collection.
Today, Zarny runs his studio in a small apartment in northern Tokyo, where dozens of small paintings depicting bucolic scenes from Myanmar adorn the walls.
“My grandfather, who was an art teacher, made these watercolors for me when I was a child because I missed Myanmar,” he said.
The recent show in Bangkok generated demand from Thai customers, leading Zarny to reflect on his roots.
“I always wondered: Where do I come from? Am I a Japanese designer or something else?” he said.
“I finally realized I was from Southeast Asia,” Zarny said, adding that he wanted to focus on that “original” source of inspiration.
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