Junya Watanabe was born in Japan in 1961 and attended Bunka Fashion College in 1984. Becoming an apprentice pattern-maker to Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons in 1987, Watanabe quickly ascended to present his own eponymous label under the Comme des Garçons umbrella in 1994, originally offering an eclectic mix of patchwork and intarsia knits and expanding into hybrid suiting and everyday wear.

Related: Comme des Garçons, Y/Project, Kapital