LFW SS26 - APUJAN’s Giant Peach

Nikita David
2 minutes ago
3 min read

There is always something surreal about an APUJAN show. This season was no different. The Taiwanese label landed back at London Fashion Week with The Extraordinary Voyage of Captain Peach, a surreal retelling of the Japanese folktale Momotaro. Transcending the idea of the runway, APUJAN presents a myth on shuffle, a literary quest spliced with tailoring, pop surrealism, and the odd chicken cameo courtesy of Taiwanese musician Nichiharu Hibito. The collection fortifies the brand's global presence as it seamlessly integrates and blends the East and West in its contextual home. Amongst the night's guests was celebrated Japanese girl group Sakuraxaka46’s star, Yamazaki Ten. APUJAN presents a cinematic voyage, merging together the concepts of fantasy and literature into a colourful, playful and innovate visually compelling narrative.

The runway itself was restless. Models seemed less like mannequins, more like apparitions passing through a storybook. Horns sprouted from foreheads. Masks dripped down torsos. Prints floated like ink in water. APUJAN has always embedded literary references into his work, but this time, the citations were overtly clear. The collection became a living library, dense with fantasy, folklore, and visual riddles.

A mesh slip scattered with cobalt koi set the tone. The dress clung and then dissolved, fish darting across the contours of the body as though suspended mid-swim. It was both serene and eerie, a water garden grafted onto skin. In Japanese symbology, koi embody perseverance, resilience against the current, but here, they read more like restless avatars, forever circling. The effect was cinematic: not just a dress, but an aquarium in motion.

This is followed directly by a translucent dress layered with red and blue onimasks, each sculpted precisely across the body. Oni are trickster demons, embodiments of rage, otherness, the shadow sides of humanity. APUJAN blurs the lines between print and body, protection and exposure. Cobalt sat high near the shoulders, wisdom, calamity, while the crimson pooled at the hem, passion, rage, blood. Dualism stitched into mesh. It flirted with the erotic, but also with the grotesque, forcing you to question desire on a so-called monster's face.

APUJAN doesn’t just print; he builds. Another look saw oni masks leave the flatness of fabric and erupt outward, clinging to the hips and shoulders of an otherwise stripped-down black ensemble. The masks looked like they were melting, faces caught mid-shift, as if the models were still in the process of possession. In motion, they swung like armour that wasn’t quite protective, a reminder that sometimes the garment can consume the wearer.

Tailoring, though, was not forgotten. A porcelain-blue and white suit emerged, crisp in its silhouette, but paired with a glowing orb and a kitsune mask. Kitsune, fox spirits are known to be shapeshifters, tricksters, and seducers. The suit itself was all order, symmetry, corporate sharpness, and exquisite geometric patterning.

Horns, sprouting from foreheads, turned models into demon-warriors. These horns, as aesthetically synchronised as they are with the collection, mark the wearer as other, as sacred. On this runway, they weren’t props, they were provocations. What does it mean to aestheticise monstrosity? APUJAN seemed to argue that it’s not monstrosity at all, it’s power, performance, and play.

The final look: a flowing white gown topped by an enormous cracked peach headpiece. Absurd and sanctified all at once, like a cosmic fruit descending from orbit. In the original folktale, Momotaro is born from a peach, a gift to childless parents. Here, the peach wasn’t nurturing; it was alien, almost surreal, swallowing the model’s head whole. The sheer milky gown was both sensual and romantic and made playful by the Nike Air Max sneakers. All the footwear for this show was in partnership with Nike, and given the buoyancy of the show, it seems fitting to catch the myth and rhythm of this collection.

Post show, Yamazaki Ten exclaims that she loves the design of APUJAN as she finds it “very cool”. She said that she finds that in Japan people wear mostly black, whilst in London there is a lot more colour. APUJAN himself finds this similarly reflected in Taiwan. Perhaps what makes APUJAN so unique is its unapologetic use of colour. As seen in this show, vibrant hues of cobalt, crimson, peach and porcelain are part of what invokes a sense of magic in this collection. It seamlessly blends into the folklore and culture and entrenches both novelty and memory deeply within.

APUJAN creates a chapter through each look, building a cohesive and contemplative voyage. The brand asks us to consider fashion not just as garments, but as folklore. Because if a boy can be born from a peach, why can’t a dress summon an army of demons, koi, and fox spirits as well?

All images by Chris Daw, courtesy of Black PR

Written by Nikita David

Edited by Co-Fashion editor, Arielle Sam-Alao