The Japanese phrase that led fashion designer Chitose Abe from obscurity to fame

Japanese designer Chitose Abe creates clothes that are inherently cool, wholly original, but also extremely practical.

Abe founded the fashion label Sacai—a variation on her maiden name, Sakai—in 1999, about a year after she gave birth. She’d always been interested in fashion, but the demands of having a newborn caused her to focus less on creation and more on function. “I feel like if I didn’t have a daughter, then maybe I’d have designed something different,” Abe said in a recent interview with Net-A-Porter magazine.