Photo: Rebecca Davis

Tokyo is arguably the capital of trends, and with good reason: If platform Converse sneakers or cotton candy pink crinoline skirts can’t make it here, they can’t make it anywhere. (For the record, they are practically a constant on the back streets of Harajuku right now.) Of course, it’s not just over-the-top street style that sets the pace for local fashion—and when something catches on, it catches on en masse. Which is why the major spring ’12 trends of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo are of note. After all, today’s only-in-Japan knotted dresses may be tomorrow’s Marc Jacobs fall ’12 collection.

The Trench Coat

The April showers staple was all over the runways—no surprise for a country that counts the rainy spring and summer months as a fifth season. Of course, the trench coat was presented with a Japanese twist: at Everlasting Sprout it was sea green (a color that popped up throughout the week), at Kamishima Chinami it had cut-outs, at Yuma Koshino it was ruffled, at Shida Tatsuya it was cropped, at Araisara it was color blocked, at Ambell it was textured, and at The Dress & Co. the belt was replaced by two “sleeves” tied around the waist. But the stand-out was the mesh trench at A Degree Fahrenheit, which toed the line between sporty and sexy.

Uneven Hems

For skirts and dresses, it was no straight story. Some labels, such as Fur Fur, opted for jagged layers, with different fabrics like lace poking out from the bottom of voluminous dresses. Others went for a hem that swept up in front, such as the glowing white skirts at Johan Ku and the show-closing gowns at Christian Dada and Junya Tashiro, or diagonally up the side, like at In-Process by Hall Ohara. Then there were designers like Yasutoshi Ezumi, who kept classic cuts fresh with uneven edges—his sweater dress looked all the more modern for its zigzag bottom.

Print-on-Print

Don’t put away the polka dots and stripes just yet: Continuing with the fall ’11 mix-and-match trend, prints made their presence known during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Everlasting Sprout, Somarta, Mintdesigns, Shida Tatsuya, and Ambell all had bold combinations, but the most playful was G.V.G.V., which paired pastel leopard print with gray and green palm prints. In a city like Tokyo, there’s no such thing as too much.

Sleeveless Blazer

The office standby got a warm-weather spin, with a handful of designers including sleeveless blazers in their collections. Jenny Fax kept it classic in navy (the better to pair with over-the-top anime-emblazoned dresses and exaggerated shoulders), as did The Dress & Co., whose tweed double-breasted vest was paired with matching shorts. Both Araisara and Plumpynuts had color blocked versions, while at Shiroma it was a cracked white leather vest that stole the show.

Two-Tone

Rather than picking just one color, many designers employed a two-tone technique with their designs. Ombre was an easy way to get the job done, from the pink-to-purple space dye sweater at The Dress & Co. to the black-to-blue leather flats at Matohu. Kamishima Chinami took a different approach: On a pair of pants the front half was rust orange while the back half was khaki.

Knots

Prepare to be fit to be tied this spring, judging by the prevalence of knots on the runway. Many designers put a single knot on the front of a dress to give it shape and add some draping to the piece, including Ne-net, Etw.Vonneguet, and Shiroma (whose button-down dress was one of our Fashion Week favorites). It wasn’t just the tops that were knotty: At Facetasm a navy and white tie was featured prominently on the front of an otherwise simple pencil skirt, and at Somarta tiny knots covered a gold zip-up skirt.

Shades Of Gray

While there were plenty of bursts of color on the runway, there was no denying the somber, serious mood on many others. The entire A Degree Fahrenheit spring ’12 collection was comprised of soot gray and black, while at Christian Dada all but one of the pieces were jet black. Even shows which played up brights gave eyes a rest with muted, charcoal versions of the same prints, notably at Somarta and G.V.G.V. Consider it one of the many indications that Japan hasn’t forgotten the disaster that befell the country earlier this year.