HOTSOX in Tokyo: Hokusai’s 46 views, Shuuetsu lettering and a red-sock prototype

HOTSOX will present Kokon Tozai at LAG (LIVE ART GALLERY) in Jingumae, Tokyo, from 3 to 14 November 2026. Admission is free, opening hours are 13:00–19:00, and the gallery closes on 8 and 9 November. The exhibition brings Katsushika Hokusai, Shuuetsu Sato’s lettering and Seiji Ozawa’s favourite red into a shared exploration of socks. The 18:00 event on 29 October is an industry and media preview, not the public opening.

From a picture frame to a sock

The key visual provides a starting point: red and black divide the composition, Mount Fuji sits alongside a great wave, and vertical lettering adds thick strokes and pronounced corners. This is exhibition publicity, not a photograph of original prints on loan. The combination of Hokusai imagery and Shuuetsu lettering is a contemporary design arrangement, not evidence that creators from different periods made a work together.

Supervised by Mitsuru Uragami of Uragami Sokyu-do, the Hokusai series translates the original 36 designs and ten additions into 46 art-sock designs. The title Thirty-six Views and the number 46 are therefore consistent. Beyond recognising The Great Wave off Kanagawa or Fine Wind, Clear Morning, visitors can consider how a horizontal landscape fits a narrow sock: placement on the instep, cuff and ankle changes how the image reads on and off the foot.

Tape lettering and Ozawa’s red

Shuuetsu lettering was developed by Shuuetsu Sato, who still works as a security guard, using adhesive tape to form letters for construction-site wayfinding. The exhibition takes that everyday public-space lettering into socks and the key visual, treating legible text as an image too. Rather than simply looking for a reduced painting on a product, this strand invites attention to stroke weight, gaps and turns. Available material does not list every product’s price, so a universal price should not be assumed.

Another focus is a prototype sock inspired by the red that conductor Seiji Ozawa favoured. The brand plans its release for 6 February 2027, the third anniversary of his death, with the prototype shown first at this exhibition. Being displayed does not make it an already available production item. Red is a design thread in a commemorative project; the announcement is not offering Ozawa’s own historical garments or worn socks for sale.

Keep the Jingumae exhibition and Roppongi shop separate

A separate pop-up at Roppongi Tsutaya Books runs from 7 to 20 November at the wall by the second-floor escalator, ending at 18:00 on its final day. The shop says it will display and sell selected designs from Hokusai’s 46, with an advance sale of a pair based on the combined Hokusai and Sato key visual. This is not a relocation of the Jingumae exhibition, nor a guarantee that all 46 designs, every size or every prototype can be bought there. Plan the venues, dates and retail scope separately.

Founded in Manhattan in 1971, HOTSOX brings an everyday accessory into a gallery, offering a route into image translation, typography and wearable design. Its brand photograph shows masterpiece-patterned socks across green steps: a different context from the red-and-black exhibition visual, not an installation photograph. LAG is on the first floor of the Daiwa Jingumae Building, 2-4-11 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo. Check closure dates and organiser updates before travelling; free admission does not mean free products or unrestricted access to the preview.