Takahashi, Wakatsuki says, never trusted fashion people. It may be more accurate to consider Takahashi as less a fashion designer and more an artist, with an artist’s varied outlets and preoccupations. The fact that it’s possible to buy and wear the associated merchandise seems almost like a coincidence. For his spring 2009 collection, in lieu of a show, Takahashi made a photo-book that contained a sci-fi tale about a colony of furry cyclops dolls. (The dolls, which he made by sewing clumps of vintage teddy bears around table lamps, are in his office. In their christening gowns, they look like the love children of Miss Havisham and E.T.) He has used the basement of his office, where the pattern-cutters now work, as a music venue; Patti Smith once played there to an intimate crowd. He has designed a whole collection in tribute to the Surrealist Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer; for another he dressed his models in men’s-style suits with ties, in homage to the ’60s jazz pianist Bill Evans. In 1974, Evans recorded a live album with the saxophonist Stan Getz titled ‘‘But Beautiful,’’ a phrase that Takahashi has used in the names of several shows, including his most recent, which was entitled ‘‘But Beautiful III, Utopie.’’ You might say that his entire body of work was created to preface that phrase: daring, dark, comic, wild, (insert your preferred adjective), but beautiful.

One of Takahashi’s regular collaborators is Katsuya Kamo, who oversees all the hair, makeup and creature-like headgear for his shows. When I visit Kamo, there are layouts for his forthcoming book pasted all along one wall of his workshop: the pleated helmets made from industrial carpet he created for Junya Watanabe, the white paper roses he embedded in crowns for Chanel. But his most outrageous work by far is for Undercover: masks with feathered wings, mesh face-coverings that glow in the dark, white rabbit ears, dried hydrangeas, wild thorns that look like prehistoric fangs.

When I ask to see some of the finished pieces, Kamo rummages around in boxes that seem mainly to contain raw materials. (One is labeled ‘‘insects’’; two others are labeled ‘‘plants’’ and ‘‘human hair.’’) There is a crown of thorns, plants that look like antlers and a desiccated red parrot. Most of it has been scavenged from the local park, he explains. He also strikes deals with taxidermists.

‘‘The last time I sent an assistant there, they wouldn’t give him a bag,’’ Kamo recalls, sounding baffled. ‘‘It was for a black crow, just dead. He had to bring it back trailing blood — and he was wearing white.’’ The crow’s feathers were used to make larger, human wings in an Undercover collection; they terrorized Takahashi’s staff because Kamo had left some flesh on them, and the smell became unbearable. ‘‘It was quite smelly,’’ Kamo admits. Then he adds: ‘‘But beautiful.’’

ONE AFTERNOON, Takahashi sits at a long table while various items from one of his men’s diffusion ranges, JohnUndercover, are presented to him for a styling check. There are men’s shirts, made in calico, with fabric samples alongside them. Takahashi puts on a pair of glasses, and proceeds to line up different button options next to the samples. Where a pleat is missing beneath the yoke, he draws a sketch to correct it. When the shirts are done, there are screen-printed T-shirts, then jewelry — pendant necklaces, hanging from black silk cords. Takahashi oversees everything: two women’s wear shows a year, two men’s wear collections, his Nike collection, three diffusion lines. His company is independently owned, and the responsibility clearly weighs on him.

Despite his workload, he is strict about his hours. He leaves the atelier every evening at 7 p.m. and has dinner with his children and wife, Rico, a former model. Takahashi takes weekends off, even right before a show. ‘‘It’s so ordinary!’’ he says.

But Wakatsuki thinks family life is key to Takahashi’s success. ‘‘I can give you some incredible information,’’ he tells me. ‘‘His parents go to Paris every season, and sit in the front row — they’ve never missed a show.’’ His younger brother, who has taken over the family business in Kiryu, now comes to Undercover two days a week to help manage the business, a skill Takahashi confesses he lacks. His daughter has started modeling.