Nobu Toronto taps local fashion designer to craft custom uniforms, Canada Reviews

Globally-renowned celebrity-backed restaurant Nobu has arrived in Toronto with a distinctive Toronto look: uniforms designed by Toronto-based slow fashion streetwear brand Dorian Who.

Iranian Canadian designer Dorian Rahimzadeh is the design mind behind the brand, which pulls inspiration from Iranian and East Asian art, along with her own lived experience growing up in Iran and grappling to express herself freely. The aim of her designs is to empower wearers to embrace their unique identities and boldly showcase them in defiance of societal constraints. That was exactly the kind of edge that Nobu Toronto wanted to incorporate into the brand’s visual identity. 

Reaching out to Rahimzadeh in late June, the Nobu marketing team expressed their love of her work, asking if she would consider designing their hostess, supervisor and bartender uniforms. With a four-week proposed timeline, the turnaround was tight, but Rahmizadeh didn’t shy away from the challenge. Agreeing to design a mini collection, she got to work right away, visiting the Nobu Toronto site while it was still under construction to garner inspiration from the restaurant’s interior, designed by locally-based Studio Munge. Everything she observed informed the uniform design she presented to Nobu’s team, from the texture of the walls, the art pieces throughout the space, the dim lighting and the asymmetric silhouettes.

The fabric itself had to be functional of course: waterproof, movable and breathable, so she custom ordered it right away. Though it arrived in Toronto within two days, the order was stuck at FedEx during the intense flash flooding in July, causing another eight-day delay — a nightmare with a four-week deadline over Rahimzadeh’s head. But she didn’t let that stop her from delivering on time. 

“It’s my first time working with another industry, which is something that I’ve always wanted to do,” she says, adding that it’s a chance to design something that is suitable for everyone. “My brand is genderless, avant-garde streetwear, and a lot of people have this idea that they can’t wear it. So the fact that I was able to create a uniform [fitting of] this high-end restaurant was amazing.” 

For Nobu, the design objective was a uniform that instills the staff with an air of confidence and sophistication and could be imagined outside of the usual restaurant setting, so Rahimzadeh delivered garments that embody edge, seduction and individuality. Draping was integrated into the dresses to reflect Nobu’s sake bar ceiling, inspired by the iconic Japanese artwork The Great Wave off Kanagawa, by ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai.

Rahimzadeh proposed a variation on her bestselling Julien shirt from previous Dorian Who collections for the bartenders, adorned with lace and hand-picked deadstock buttons inspired by the restaurant’s handmade sushi. 

The result isn’t a traditional restaurant uniform, but a statement piece that combines the class of Nobu’s modern Japanese design with Toronto’s expressive personality.