continued

   Training in fashion design at East Sydney College, Isogawa worked as a kitchen-hand in a restaurant and as a Japanese tour guide to survive.
   After graduating, it took him two years to save enough money to open is own shop in Woollahra, Sydney, now a trendy shopping area but nine years ago a retail desert offering cheap rents.
   The first two years were particularly tough and he nearly closed the store when he had no sales for several weeks in a row.
   His part-time job as a tour guide kept him going and gave him the freedom to buy fabric to produce his own original designs.
   ‘I don’t see any point making something that other people are designing because you can buy it from them,’ he says.
   The hard work paid off in 1997 when Joan Burstein, buyer for British store Browns, purchased his Satori collection after seeing it at Mercedes Australian Fashion Week.
   A year later his Botancia

Describing his upbringing as ‘religious, structured and regimented’, Isogawa didn’t thrive on the competitive, pressurized environment placed on Japanese students to get into a good university

collection was purchased by Barney’s New York, cementing his presence internationally, leading to his first showing in Paris at the Royal St Honoré.
   His clothing is also popular in Japan, where he has four stockists in Tokyo.
   Showing twice-yearly in Paris, Isogawa travels to Japan every four months to visit his family, spending an estimated six months of the year overseas.
   Describing his upbringing as ‘religious, structured and regimented’, Isogawa didn’t thrive on the competitive and pressurized environment placed on Japanese students to get into a good university to pursue a higher education.
   An accomplished artist, Isogawa uses his talent to design and decorate his own fabrics, a skill his family tolerated but didn’t appreciate when he was growing up.
   ‘I think they thought drawing wouldn’t actually get me into a good school or university. They didn’t try and stop me doing it but they didn’t understand it,’ he says.
   At age 20 he left home and embarked on a journey to ‘explore the world and rediscover himself’, taking him along the coast into central Australia and through the desert.
   Australia is now home for Isogawa, who much prefers the sunshine.
   ‘When you don’t feel well and you see the sun, you immediately feel healed somehow,’ he says.
   His unique designs, all born from sketching, certainly light up his Fouveaux Street workroom where he employs 15 staff.
   In addition to ready-to-wear, Isogawa designs costumes for the renowned Sydney Dance Company, a collaboration that began in 1998 and a challenge he relishes because it allows him to design for a specific environment that can be far from reality.
   Inspiration, it seems, is never far away for Isogawa, who always has a sketchbook handy.
   ‘I sketch anywhere, on the plane, in the hotel, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and grab a pen and paper. It is a 24-hour day job. I never know when inspiration will arise,’ says Isogawa, who can’t imagine doing anything else apart from what he is doing now.
   ‘I think that is why I can tolerate working long hours. This is it,’ he says. •

Carolyn Enting is fashion editor of The Dominion Post and a senior correspondent with Lucire.