For me, everything about Hiraku says distinct and nothing says “Ew,” but I get what he is saying, because few can understand how to rock and roll a velvet, leopard-lined mumu with antique broaches like he does. Memorable to the point of a new obsession for me are his oversized scarves, perfect touches to everything in proportion and pattern. Hiraku is a creative force in the burnt orange ethnic scarf with the timeless Lanvin blazer and his “this year’s” leopard shawl, with the literally infinite and ingenious ways he wears it. Despite Hiraku’s penchant for the unpredictable, his roots in the traditions of style comes from his grandmother, who is a tea ceremony teacher in Japan and where he was “surrounded by beautiful kimonos.” But mostly, his mom, who moved Hiraku from Tokyo to the Bronx when he was 13, was serious about fashion and heavy on the traditions and rules. If he was wearing a heavy jacket in the beginning of the fall, she would say, “But what are you going to wear in the winter?” Hiraku says that she “fashionably” educated him, and he glows with the appoval he would get from her over “the splash of color” of his belted royal blue jumpsuit. However, they are worlds apart in many ways – she would take off the leopard scarf and and he wears it with everything, everyday, and in every way.