Far from the flashbulbs of Tokyo fashion week, Yoshio Yokobori is juggling multiple roles — talent scout, cultural interpreter, dealmaker — in a quest to help foreign buyers navigate a labyrinthine design landscape and access Japan's most exciting underground labels. Although Tokyo's streets offer up a wealth of inspiration for global trend spotters, Japanese designers have struggled to make a dent abroad in recent years to follow in the hallowed footsteps of influential and successful designers such as Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto. It's a problem industry insider Yokobori knows well.
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The fashion scouts taking Japan’s underground labels global