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This paper focuses on the postwar “So-en” magazine because it is a discourse space in which ‘fashion designers’ had great influence as school managers and educators, and were gradually represented as artists, in conjunction with the acceptance of fashion trends and Western-style dressmaking education. And because the pioneering practice of evaluation of clothes and its historical significance can be examined from the examples of ‘fashion design criticism’ conducted by this magazine, especially in the postwar period. In this paper, we have examined the historical development of the discourse on fashion design in the postwar “So-en”, which was formalized as ‘criticism’ by valuing fashion design in relation to the form and functionality of clothing, while engaging with Western-style dressmaking culture. What has become clear is, first, the connection between fashion design criticism and the interest in the material conditions of clothing in the discursive space of Western dressmaking education; second, the relationship between fashion design criticism and the process by which clothing and its creators are regarded as ‘works’ and ‘authors’ in Western dressmaking culture; and third, the relationship between the functionalist, the difficulty of approaching fashion as a phenomenon or concept, or the cultural and social context external to clothing, in functionalist fashion design criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]