The Art of Japanese-Inspired Design: Iki, Ma and Shibui
Before I became a fashion designer, I spent a couple of years teaching English in Fukushima, in Japan’s Tōhoku region. I wasn’t living in Tokyo or another city most visitors would recognise. Fukushima was a place many people outside Japan knew little about then. Living and working there gave me an everyday view of Japan, shaped by local routines, traditions and the people I came to know.
I wasn’t studying Japanese aesthetic theory or planning a clothing label at the time. But I was paying attention: to the way people dressed, to the space and proportion in traditional garments, and to the care given to ordinary things. The volume of a hakama, the ease of a haori and the striking shape of trousers worn by Japanese tobi workers stayed with me.
Years later, when I began designing Finix in Singapore, those impressions met other parts of my life: my identity as a Singaporean Chinese person with Peranakan heritage, my experience of gender-fluidity, my background in dance and yoga, and the practical realities of dressing in a hot, humid city.
I later came across three Japanese concepts—iki, ma and shibui—that gave me language for aspects of my design approach. I did not set out to apply them as rules. I recognised something familiar in them after the work had begun.
Iki: A distinctive silhouette worn with ease
Iki (粋) is associated with the stylishness of Edo urban culture: a sense of refinement that can also be confident and playful.
In fashion, that makes me think about the difference between a garment that looks interesting on a hanger and one that lets someone feel like themselves. Finix often uses a strong shape—a balloon leg, a wide pleat, a cropped layer or an asymmetrical wrap—but I want the wearer to feel at ease within it.
Our Tobi Pants are one example. The Japanese workwear reference is visible in their generous volume and tapered shape. For Finix, the question was how to bring that proportion into an everyday wardrobe. Could someone wear them with a simple tee, walk around Singapore, sit down for a meal and feel comfortable throughout? The design has to work when life is happening.
My own relationship with gender has shaped that question. I know what it feels like when the clothes available to you seem to prescribe how a man or woman should look. I want a Finix piece to offer another possibility: a silhouette with character that leaves room for the wearer’s own expression.
Ma: The space around the body
Ma (間) can mean an interval, gap or pause. In design, it invites attention to the space between things.
I think about that space whenever I work on proportion. It is there between a wide trouser leg and the body, between an open jacket and the layer beneath, or between a short hem and a longer top. Those relationships give an outfit its rhythm. They also determine how a garment moves.
My years in dance made me especially aware of this. Clothing changes shape as the body turns, bends and walks. A generous cut can create a beautiful line in motion, but it must also allow the movement to happen comfortably.
Space matters in Singapore’s climate, too. I’m interested in the presence of a Japanese-inspired jacket or a pair of wide-leg trousers, but the clothes have to make sense in tropical weather. Fabric, weight and construction are therefore as important as the silhouette. An outer layer should offer a new proportion without feeling like a winter garment transplanted into a humid city.
You can see this thinking in pieces such as our Noragi Jacket, wrap tops and Box Pleat Wide-Leg Joggers. Each has a deliberate shape, but the final look depends on what the wearer puts alongside it—and how they choose to move in it.
Shibui: What you appreciate over time
Shibui (渋い) describes a quiet, restrained sophistication whose depth may become more apparent with time.
Not every Finix piece is understated at first glance. Some of our proportions are bold. But I want even the bold pieces to have considered details that continue to hold someone’s interest: how a pleat falls, how a neckline frames the body, or how an unexpected cut becomes surprisingly easy to wear.
Our Genesis Core Tee plays a quieter role. It is an everyday essential, designed to sit comfortably alongside more expressive pieces. When a customer reaches for it again and again, its appeal comes from the experience of wearing it as much as from its first impression.
That balance matters to me. A wardrobe needs moments of expression and pieces that support them. The two can make each other stronger.
A design language shaped by more than one place
My time in Fukushima gave me lasting impressions of Japanese life and design, but Finix is designed from Singapore and from my own mixed experiences. I’m Singaporean Chinese with Peranakan heritage. I have lived across cultures, worked in a corporate career, moved through dance studios and yoga practice, and spent years figuring out how to dress in a way that felt true to me.
I don’t claim that any one heritage or Japanese concept neatly explains a garment. These influences come together in the decisions I make: which familiar form to reinterpret, how much volume feels right, where a layer should fall, what fabric works in our climate and how much freedom a wearer has to style the piece differently.
That is how I understand modern Asian fashion through Finix. It is a point of view shaped by where I’ve lived, who I am and the life I’m designing for now.
Learning the words iki, ma and shibui did not change the origin of Finix. They helped me articulate why I keep returning to certain questions: Can a silhouette be distinctive and easy to inhabit? Can the space around the body be both expressive and practical? Can a piece reveal more of its value each time it is worn?
Those questions continue to guide me. The answers become the clothes.