The Ukiyo Collection: Creating My Own World

Addy Brennan
May 1
2 min read

Updated: Aug 30

Ukiyo — “the floating world.”

A concept born from Japanese art and philosophy that invites you to live in the moment, drift freely, and find beauty in the impermanence of everything.

This collection was my return to joy.

The Ukiyo Collection came to life at a moment when I needed it most, not just as a designer, but as a maker. It reminded me that sewing doesn’t always have to be calculated or commercial. It can be playful, emotional, and free. This collection let me create just to create again. I also got to make some of these pieces and collaborate with my best friend, Alyena. We met in our 20s but we know we would have been inseparable and getting up to all kinds of silliness in our own world as kids. The photos, the styling, and the pieces themselves are a tribute to us as kids.

Ukiyo is personal. It’s a daydream stitched in fabric.

Inspired by vintage Japanese graphics, childhood doodles, and the unmistakable emotional resonance of Yoshitomo Nara’s work, these pieces explore vulnerability, whimsy, and quiet rebellion, just like his girls with their sharp little eyes and soft little hearts.

This collection doesn’t demand anything from you.

It invites you to pause, to feel, and to float. Sometimes, that’s more than enough.

The Twin Side Tie Tops

The Twin Side Tie Tops are friendship made fabric. With graphics pulled from vintage Japanese matchbook art, one celebrates twin cats, the other twin octopuses—two halves of a whole, just like you and your bestie. They’re easy, breezy, and unapologetically playful, proof that fashion doesn’t always have to be serious to be meaningful. Sometimes the best art is the one you share.

A stylish young lady in a green crop top with pink piping featuring a vintage japaneese matchbook cover on the front as a statement

2 friends in coordinating pink and green crop tops waiting to go fishing

a green crop top with pink piping and pink octopuses from a vintage japaneese matchbook cover

a pink side tie crop top with black piping and a black cat image from a vintage japaneese matchbook

The Matchbook Wrap Jacket

The Matchbook Wrap Jacket takes the boldness of vintage Japanese matchbook design and reimagines it as a wearable collage. Broken apart and pieced back together in velvety softness, this wrap jacket feels like a funky hug. It’s experimental, it’s unexpected, and it’s exactly the kind of piece that makes you grin every time you put it on.

2 friends on a hazy summer day with their backs turned to the camera both wearing matching jackets with a vintage matchbook cover on them

a velvet wrap jacket with graphics from a vintage japanees match book

The Nara Jackets

The Nara Jackets are friendship art in denim form. Cropped, color-blocked, and back-paneled with Yoshitomo Nara’s iconic art, these jackets were born out of a story between best friends, NYC for me, Ohio for Aleyna. They prove that clothes can be more than just style; they can be coordinates on a map, a shared joke, a little funky fun stitched into everyday life.

a dream like photo of 2 friends in matching black and white denim jackets and matching bucket hats

The Nara Beach Cover

The Nara Beach Cover is a rework with a twist. Once a micro dress, now reimagined into a color-blocked open-front cover, it’s equal parts beach-ready and street-style. And because surprise is part of the fun, the back panel hides a Yoshitomo Nara cat, waiting to be revealed when you turn around. It’s a wink in fabric form.

a stylish young woman in a bright blue dress/tunic with the art of yoshitomo nara on it — The Reworked Piece

The Nara Side Tie Tunic

a stylish young woman in a bright yellow tunic with the art of yoshitomo nara on it

The Nara Side Tie Tunic is effortless cool wrapped up in a side-tie silhouette. Paired with its matching tote, it’s as breezy as a summer afternoon but still packed with funky, fashion-forward detail. It’s easy, wearable art with a wink.