Fashion designer Naoki Takizawa was born on July 19, 1960, in Tokyo. He graduated from the Dress Design Department of Kuwasawa Design School in 1981 and joined Miyake Design Office the following year. In 1983, he was responsible for the design of Plantation, a brand under the ISSEY MIYAKE umbrella. He became the designer of ISSEY MIYAKE Men in 1993 and ISSEY MIYAKE in 1999. He has collaborated with a wide range of creators, including artist Takashi Murakami for the SS00 advertisements and a window display collaboration with creative director Kashiwa Sato in 2005. He has also worked on a wide range of projects, including costume design for the Frankfurt Ballet's "Eidos Telos" (1995), uniforms for the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2004), and curtains for the Musée National du Quai Branly in Paris (2006). In 2006, he founded Naoki Takizawa Design and became its representative director and creative director. He retired as creative director of Issey Miyake with the 2007 Spring/Summer collection. In September of the same year, he presented the Naoki Takizawa collection in New York. In 2007, he created the dress "Moon Over the Mountain" with artist Yoshitomo Nara. In 2008, he participated in the brand renewal of Sanyo Shokai's men's brand, SANYO, and was in charge of designing the collection line and supervising the second line. He has also served as creative director of the Helmut Lang men's line since the 2010-2011 Autumn/Winter collection. In 2011, he became a part-time lecturer at Waseda University's School of Culture, Media and Society. In the same year, he was appointed design director for UNIQLO, and together with Kashiwa Sato, who was also appointed creative director, he announced a new project, the UNIQLO Innovation Project. He has been supervising all UNIQLO items since the 2013-14 Autumn/Winter season, and at an exhibition held last month, he introduced a new concept called "LifeWear." He has also served as director for Yanmar since March of this year, where he works on high-end marine and agricultural wear. Yusuke Takahashi, who was appointed as the new designer for ISSEY MIYAKE MEN last month, won the 83rd Soen Award in 2009, selected by Naoki Takizawa.