Street Wise

In some forms of ancient Japanese theater, a skinny red stripe on the stage is all that separates heaven from hell. For decades, Japan's fashion designers have treated the thin glass of their storefront windows as an equally inviolate divider, cleaving the cool, exclusionary aesthetic of their boutiques from the rowdy street fashion of the teens preening outside. But enter Naoki Takizawa's sleek, stark space in Tokyo's fashionable Roppongi Hills neighborhood and the soaring glass wall seems less a barrier than an instrument for osmosis. Among his latest designs for haute-couture label Issey Miyakefanciful blouses and blazers inspired by the flourishes...