Up-and-coming designer Akiko Aoki is the talk of the town as the "future of Tokyo fashion". She debuted at the Tokyo Collection as part of "Tokyo New Age", a project launched in 2014 by designers Yoshikazu Yamagata and Mikio Sakabe to discover and nurture high-potential design candidates. Her debut collection was a reflection on her fifteen years at a strict Catholic school, featuring the school uniform as the motif for her "restricted schoolgirl". Since her debut, Aoki's focus has rested firmly on the inner life and body image of the multifaceted modern woman, expressed in all elements of girly, feminine and sexy.