Liberum Arbitrium – Shinsuke Mitsouka

The label name Liberum Arbitrium, Latin for “Free Will“, already reveals part of the thought behind the quite recently established brand by the Japanese designer Shinsuke Mitsouka. Good versus evil, the philosophy behind the brand name represents the ability to make choices free from certain constraints – a topic originally debated heavily in philosophy. Fascinated by the sound and the deep meaning of the dead language, the young designer decided to give his label a Latin name already back when he was designing his graduate collection.

Attending a design school in Japan were the very first steps of Shinsuke Mitsouka’s career path. However, his major turning point was winning a Japanese fashion competition that made him fully realize his dreams of becoming a designer. After graduating from Nottingham Trent University, he moved to Paris for an Internship at Gustavo Lins Couture Maison. Having done that, his career proceeded fast: almost at the same time he was offered to design a costume for Black Eyed Peas front singer Fergie, whilst  “Blow Presents” (a UK PR company) gave him the opportunity to do a show at London Fashion Week 2012 S/S. Naturally this was the perfect opportunity to start his very own label – Liberum Arbitrium.

Even though his three collections are very different in terms of fabrics and cuts, we can see the original intention of creating fashion not subject to any constraints in all of them. In his most recent collection “Ghost”, he experimented with light materials where a subtle and profound movement is applied.  Mitsouka drew his inspiration not only from the word “ghost” itself but also words deriving from it, such as “ghosting”, a technique used in television in order to produce a replica of the transmitted image, which is then super-imposed on top of the main image on an analog broadcast.  This idea of “super-imposing” through technical patterns is exactly what Shinsuke Mitsouka used in his collection to get the effect of various fabrics. The color name “Ghost white” is the main theme for this collection and is being used to create a pure, cleansing and silent atmosphere seeming almost ghost-like.

This is only an example of how much thought the 28-year-old designer puts into the themes and completion of his innovative designs. So lets hope to hear more of Liberum Arbitrium soon!