Open Base Saturdays #1: Launching Civic Fashion

2026.06.06(Sat)

Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT] B1 STUDIO , 3F BASE

Date & Time: June 6 (Sat) 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm (Open 5:30 p.m.)
Venue: Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT] B1 STUDIO , 3F BASE
Capacity: 30
Admission: free
Registration: No registration required. Same-day registration only.(If you wish to participate, please come directly to the venue.)

Guests：Ashida Hiroshi (fashion researcher / Professor, Faculty of Design, Kyoto Seika University）、Ishikawa Yukako (urbanist, experience designer / Co-Director, for Cities / Director, Dear Tree Project / Director, Social Green Design / Director, watage / Director, nae / adjunct instructor, Joshibi University of Art and Design)
facilitator：Ito Takayuki(Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT])

CCBT is launching a new Meetup series, Open Base Saturdays.

Exploring CCBT’s 2026 theme of civic fashion, Open Base Saturdays is a series of talks with different guests held on the first Saturday of each month. Audiences are welcome to bring coffee, sandwiches, and snacks when they join these informal events.

The Meetup series features different guests each time sharing their views on the annual CCBT theme.

The 2026 theme is civic fashion, a newly coined term. CCBT’s aim is not to question clothing (fashion) itself through its activities this year. Instead, this series explores the as-yet undefined theme without limiting the scope to a specific area of expertise or field. In this way, it is an opportunity for audiences to gain new perspectives on their own questions.

After the talk, After-Hours Base offers time for further reflecting on the questions raised in the discussion. Feel free to stay longer and enjoy an informal conversation with guests, fellow attendees, artists, members of the CCBT team, and other people you wouldn’t normally meet. CCBT’s Tech Lab and reference materials will also available during this time.

The guests for this edition of Open Base Saturdays are Ashida Hiroshi and Ishikawa Yukako, who serve as mentors for the 2026 Art Incubation program. Ashida is a researcher specializing in fashion studies who has developed a vocabulary for fashion criticism. With the motto of utilizing the city in hands-on ways, Ishikawa has built up an extensive practice related to cities and communities.

Please join us as we kick off our exploration of civic fashion through Ashida and Ishikawa’s conversation.

Open Base Saturdays

This Meetup series is held on the first Saturday of every month. It invites guest speakers with different expertise and perspectives to explore the essence of CCBT’s annual theme from various angles. Guests are selected based on recommendations from previous guests, forming a relay of speakers. After the talk, audiences can chat at the After-Hours Base event held in the Base space on the third floor of CCBT.

Ashida Hiroshi

fashion researcher / Professor, Faculty of Design, Kyoto Seika University

Born in 1978, Ashida Hiroshi completed his doctoral studies at the Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University. He was an associate curator at the Kyoto Costume Institute before taking up his current position as a professor in the Faculty of Design at Kyoto Seika University. His research focus is fashion studies. His publications include Language and Clothing (2021, Adachi Press) and Critical Word: Fashion Studies (co-editor, 2022, Film Art), and published translations include Fashion Theory: The Selected Writings of Valerie Steele (co-translation supervisor, 2025, Adachi Press). Ashida also serves on the editorial board of the fashion studies journal vanitas and as a member of the management team behind kotobatofuku, a select shop for books and apparel.

Ishikawa Yukako

urbanist, experience designer / Co-Director, for Cities / Director, Dear Tree Project / Director, Social Green Design / Director, watage / Director, nae / adjunct instructor, Joshibi University of Art and Design

Aspiring to create hands-on ways to make full use of urban environments, Ishikawa Yukako develops small-scale citizen-led initiatives in Tokyo, Cairo, Ho Chi Minh, and other cities. She is the co-director of for Cities, an urban experience design studio whose website functions as an online platform for urbanists around the world. She also runs Urbanist School, an educational project. Ishikawa launched watage, a community center in Kanda, and nae in west Shinjuku, Tokyo as organizations to develop community projects with a focus on young people and children. She is also the head of Dear Tree Project, a data platform for making better use of roadside trees and urban green space.

https://linktr.ee/YukakoIshikawa

Production: Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT]
Organizer: Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT] (Arts Council Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture)

Open Base Saturdays #1: Launching Civic Fashion

Open Base Saturdays

Ashida Hiroshi

Ishikawa Yukako

Related Events

Talk & Workshop: Playing with Small Voices—Hacking the Efficient City through Play

2025 CCBT Artist Fellows Final Presentations: Responses to the Future Commons

Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT] Phase 2: Triggering Social Experiments in Tokyo