ALMOSTBLACK is a Japanese men’s fashion brand that was established in 2015 by the designer Nakajima Shunta, who has been attracting attention with collections inspired by Nakajima’s love of art and Japanese traditional arts and crafts, while taking cues from the realms of military and dress fashion design.

The brand name refers to a color known as “kachiiro,” a shade of blue so dark that it is “almost black.” In the Heian period (794-1185), natural indigo-dyed “kachie” were worn by military officers, and in the following Kamakura period, the color became popular among warriors as a lucky item because of the meaning of “victory” that the word “kachi” also implies.

With a name derived from a Japanese traditional color, the unique aesthetic of ALMOSTBLACK manifests itself in the brand’s original designs, and increasingly also in collaborations with Japanese artists including the calligrapher Inoue Yuichi, the painter Shiraga Kazuo, the ikebana artist Teshigahara Sofu, and the photographer Hosoe Eikoh.

The 2025 autumn/winter and 2026 spring/summer collections incorporated works by the photographer Ishimoto Yasuhiro. In addition to utilizing images of Ishimoto’s works by printing them onto the brand’s items, the collections at large were inspired by Ishimoto’s explorations of the Bauhaus aesthetic and “Japanese style” from both eastern and western perspectives. Aspects like the superficial patterns of Japanese-style dresses, and proportions based on those of Ishimoto’s favorite type of film, have been incorporated into contemporary fashion designs.

Enjoy a fusion of art and design as proposed by a spirited creator, combined with original photographic prints from the museum’s collection.