Departures | Designer Mame Kurogouchi Looks Back To the Future

In a sunny showroom space on Paris’ left bank, the fashion designer Maiko Kurogouchi has arrived bearing delicately wrapped packages of assorted mochi from Ogata, a beloved Japanese teahouse and restaurant in the city’s Marais neighborhood. “Mochi is my favorite food in the world,” she says of the traditional Japanese rice cakes, counting three visits to Ogata since her arrival in Paris to show her fall 2023 collection earlier that week. We’re a hemisphere away from Tokyo, where Kurogouchi spends most of her year. There, she’s more familiarly known as “Mame” (pronounced “Mah-may”), a childhood nickname that means “bean,” referencing her diminutive size. It’s also the namesake of her brand Mame Kurogouchi, which she launched in 2010 after several years working under the celebrated designer Issey Miyake. The brand now maintains three retail stores in Tokyo.

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