Controversial and confusing, American Apparel is reportedly launching at Tokyo Fashion week… we know. Strange.

Tokyo Fashion Week became an official Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week last year, was purchased by IMG and has been growing ever since these developments. But the fact remains, why would a USA-manufactured brand that has never walked the runways in a show debut in Japan?

“We wanted to do something new this year.. JFW seemed cool because it’s a newcomer on the Mercedes-Benz fashion week scene and Tokyo is a city that is very open minded to new, creative ideas, particularly when it comes to fashion,” Katherine Johnson, AA’sRegionalManager for Japan & China told a source over email.

“We approached the JFW organizers with the idea to do a presentation and after-party and JFW really liked the idea.”

“Japan is an interesting market for us and a lot of our recent collaborations have been very successful here.. so it seemed like the perfect place to break the rules in a way.. I think we might be the first brand without an appointed designer that’s showing at a high-profile Mercedes-Benz fashion week, so we’re very very excited about it.”

Bending and breaking the mold again, the American Apparel way.