The moment was primed for kitsch or magic; it could have gone either way. On a warm summer morning in Florence, Italy — the air narcotic with the scent of blooming camellia — guests of the men’s wear trade fair Pitti Uomo made their way through tunnels of clipped greenery at the Renaissance Boboli Gardens to a fashion show mounted by the Japanese designer Hiroki Nakamura.

Stopping first at a kiosk just inside the Porta Romana gate, they donned chevron-patterned kimono jackets that Mr. Nakamura, 45, had ordered from a traditional Kyoto craftsman. Thus attired, they moved as a group toward a Zanobi del Rosso 18th-century “Lemon House,” looking like nothing so much as members of a diplomatic legation to the Medici court in a woodblock print by Hiroshige.

In reality, it was just buyers and press and other personnel from the extended fashion posse. And yet, fashion without storytelling is just sewing. It is his shrewd understanding of this precept that has helped vault Mr. Nakamura’s label, Visvim, from the status of Tokyo indie to a business with a reported $100 million in sales.