Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law & Technology

If Haute Couture Pays a Subtle Tribute to Google Earth (& Data Centers)

The aerial view has often been used as an inspiration by fashion designers to create three-dimentional textures and surface elaborations, graphic effects or conceptual prints.

In Martin Margiela's S/S 20 Haute Couture collection there was one design inspired by this trend - a dress that seemed made with a fabric characterised by multiple images of swimming pools. The photographs were obviously taken from satellite images (did they use Google Earth to do it?) and the effect seemed very similar to the images created by Jenny Odell.

In her projects the American multi-disciplinary artist has often selected from Google Earth images of man-made architectures such as swimming pools, circular farms, salt ponds, waste water treatment plants, parking lots, silos and landfills that she proceeded to isolate, cut out and reconfigure into Photoshop. 

The result is fascinating and alienating at the same time as the man-made structures look uncanny when isolated from their environments.

As Odell highlights on her site: "The view from a satellite is not a human one, nor is it one we were ever really meant to see. But it is precisely from this inhuman point of view that we are able to read our own humanity, in all of its tiny, repetitive marks upon the face of the earth. From this view, the lines that make up basketball courts and the scattered blue rectangles of swimming pools become like hieroglyphs that say: people were here." 

The same can be said about the swimming pools on the Margiela's dress: from a distance they look like aquamarine rectangles, but, close-up, they reveal there are people enjoying themselves in their crystalline waters, so that the repetitive print on the fabric becomes the tangible proof of human existence.  

Odell's project is also linked with data centers as satellite images pass through them, that's why this dress somehow has a distant connection with data centers as well.

It would be nice to know if Odell's artworks were the actual inspiration behind this Margiela dress by John Galliano. But, even if they weren't the starting point for this particular design, you can bet that, at some point in future, some other fashion designer will spot Odell's digital elaborations and start creating garments and accessories inspired by her unique collages of satellite images. 

Make Do & Mend (and Don't Forget to Add Some Embroidery Stitches): E. Tautz Men's A/W 20

Sustainability is a big trend in fashion at the moment and quite a few companies are integrating in their collections designs made with recycled fibres and textiles.

At the beginning of January, during the men's shows in London, Patrick Grant, Creative Director at E. Tautz, explored the possibilities of sustainability by producing 50% of his collection from repurposed textiles. 

The latter were selected from unwanted clothes found in clothing recycling banks in the UK: industrial recycler Astco provided indeed second-hand garments such as cotton shirts and denim jeans, but also bed linen. 

Grant added to the sustainable theme an art and craft twist thanks to the collaboration of some embroiderers extraordinaire – the students from the Royal College of Needlework (RSN).

Coordinated by visiting lecturer and textile artist Celia Pym, who led the darning workshops for this project, the Degree Students created subtle decorative motifs on ties and around pockets, they applied check patches on soft jumpers or created graphic juxtapositions with herringbone patches on check jackets.

Denim was reduced to strips that formed abstract motifs or letters on sweats, or it was layered and covered in stitching in garments that looked like hand-me-downs. 

The result was a collection with a modern yet rough edge and a lived-in look, and that was based on the "make do & mend" lesson that previous generations learnt during World War II, when rationing prompted people to darn, unpick yarn and reknit sweaters, deconstruct and reconstruct coats and create items from discarded fabrics (from parachutes, for example).

Grant, has been trying to reduce waste also with other brands he works for including Norton & Sons of Savile Row and Community Clothing, and he conceives the use of embroideries in this collection as a code to spread the sustainability message, reminding people to buy less and love more one's clothing.  

"Fashion is a celebration of the joy of creativity and craftsmanship," Grant stated in a RSN press release. "Our version of Fashion creates clothes that have meaning, clothes that are loved and cherished. Every piece is made to last. If you love your clothes, wear them until they wear out, and when they do, fix them. And when your clothes can no longer be fixed, recycle them. We are very grateful to the Royal School of Needlework whose students have resurrected and elevated the skills of needlework to give extra life to our garments."

So here's a lesson for you: buy less, learn how to make do and mend and, well, don't forget to add some embroidery as you go along.

Random Moments of Déjà Vu from the Men's Shows

If you know your fashion history, when you watch a fashion show you may be able to easily spot references to or unexpected connections with previous designs. There were such déjà vu moments also during the latest menswear shows.

Kim Jones' at Dior Men combined a vision of Haute Couture with a tribute to Judy Blame in his A/W 20 collection. The designer studied the French house archive, embroideries, embellishments and silhouettes, then reinvented them with a subversive touch to create an elegant wardrobe for men. 

The results were striking and at times costumy as proved by one opulent cape with a sparkling embroidery reproducing a cascade of feathers, reminiscent of an evening gown designed by Bob Mackie in the '80s that featured a glamorous sequinned motif of palm fronds.

Talking about embellishments, Olivier Rousteing, literally swam in a sea of sequins in his designs inspired by the zodiac for Balmain.

Yet, his sensual nomads didn't study the stars via Abd ar-Rahman as-Sufi's Liber locis stellarum fixarum, but seemed to sport modern reinterpretations of Schiaparelli's designs from her iconic 1938 "Zodiac" collection. 

A pink bomber with an embellished sequinned motif of a sun was a reinterpretation of Schiap's "Phoebus" cape; a black coat covered in silver and gold motifs, pointed at Schiap's "Apollo of Versailles" cape, while the horses on this cape (from the Apollo Fountain in the Parc de Varsailles) seemed to have been recontextualised as prints in one shirt. 

Who knows, maybe Rousteing was trying to tell us he could be a candidate in case there will ever be a Schiaparelli menswear collection.

Elsewhere, Virgil Abloh left behind streetwear to become a champion of tailoring at Off-White and Louis Vuitton: for the former, he came up with a series of suits characterised by perfectly circular holes, the new symbols of the brand after Abloh decided to abandon his beloved black and white stripes.

Will Abloh copyright holes now? Not sure, but maybe he shouldn't as suits with holes (albeit in a more conceptual key and characterised by more relaxed silhouettes and cut outs) were already done by Rei Kawakubo for her Comme des Garçons' A/W 2014/15 collection.

Louis Vuitton's collection closed with cloud printed suits (at times covered in micro sequins to give the immaterial clouds an enhanced tactile quality) that made people think about technology and cloud computing. But, as models walked down a runway on which giant tools (inspired by the ones used by Louis Vuitton craftsmen) had been scattered for a Pop Art touch à la Claes Oldenburg, your mind raced to other cloud-inspired garments.

From Prince's ensemble donned in the "Raspberry Beret" video to Moschino's '90s suits and dresses and Jean Charles de Castelbajac's Pop Art S/S 09 designs, clouds have been a recurring theme in fashion. But maybe critics had their heads "ἐν ταῖς νεφέλαις", that is "in the clouds", as my philosophy teacher would tell me when I was too distracted in school to actually notice what was happening around me.

Intuitions & Inspirations: Sacai Men's A/W 2020 and Pre-Fall 2020

Most fashion designers talk about inspirations when they are interviewed about their collections. Sacai's Chitose Abe claimed there was another keyword behind her A/W 2020 menswear and Pre-Fall 20 collections - intuition.  

While researching the theme that prompted her to challenge personal preconceptions, Abe found out that Albert Einstein used intuition in the process of his discoveries.

Indeed, the scientist once stated: "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."

Chitose Abe knows pretty well that her gift stands in a well-developed vocabulary based on functional and practical designs with just a little bit of a conceptual twist, and, following her intuition, she decided to update her fashion glossary in a minimal way, obtaining remarkable results.

The designer used clever constructions of layers, patterns and volumes to create new styles and looks: her collections, showcased last Saturday in Paris opened with womenswear, with military jackets worn over a peacoat, matched with fluidly flowing skirts and paired with thick-soled boots.

From a distance the garments gave the impression of being just one piece, but, if you looked better, you realised this was a clever exercise in layering (a trend for the next A/W season as seen during the men's shows) and you could see where one piece ended and the other started, even though in other cases (for example, a denim jacket matched with a wool pencil skirt), the designer actually combined two pieces together with a zipper.

The knitwear offer also incorporated several zippers to help the wearer creating temporary slashes in the designs.

Men's looks went along the same lines, even though at times they betrayed a more relaxed urban and casual attitude.

Many designs incorporated elements taken from utility clothing, such as ample pockets, and looked like elegant reinventions of uniforms in which rigid tailoring was juxtaposed to soft silhouettes and materials. 

Juxtapositions of fabrics like denim and tweed were for Chitose Abe another way to follow her own intuition and come up with trench coats that integrated wool panels and dresses that incorporated animal spots or tartan motifs.

Cosmic-themed bandanas featuring artwork by tattoo artist Dr. Woo introduced a softer theme to the collection with trousers constructed from bandanas and skirts and tops made with silk scarves.

Most looks were accessorised with necklaces made from signet rings and with sneakers designed in collaboration with Nike and dubbed "Vaporwaffle", as they are based on the Vapor runner (they will be available from July to coincide with the Tokyo Olympic Games).

A final tribute to Einstein was to be found towards the end of the show - a T-shirt with the scientist with his tongue sticking out and the quote "I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am." 

The Ballad of the Salty Sea: Lanvin Men's A/W 2020 + Hugo Pratt's Corto Maltese

Comics can be great sources of inspiration for fashion designers: at times their layout contributes to give a garment a sort of Pop Art twist; at others a specific character sets the mood for a collection.

Bruno Sialelli at Lanvin moved from Corto Maltese for the A/W 20 menswear collection, showcased in Paris in the building of the National Dance Center. 

Created in the late '60s by Italian artist Hugo Pratt (Ugo Eugenio Prat), Corto Maltese is a sailor (the theme of the sea was also behind Lanvin's S/S 20 collection, as you may remember) and adventurer, a free spirit who travels the world, searching for lost continents, believing in heroism, witsnessing key historical events and meeting cultural icons and world leaders. While the drawings are at times stiff, with characters often depicted in half profile, the stories have engaging plots and they are rich with details.

A drifter with no allegiances but with a penchant for helping the disadvantaged, Corto Maltese is usually dressed in a navy uniform of no particular nationality that he wears with an upturned collar (somehow the character may become the icon of style par excellence come next season as there was a sort of Corto Maltese lookalike also in the opening of Yohji Yamamoto's menswear runway). 

On Lanvin's runway there were long navy officer's coats, pea coats and jackets with large silver buttons or metal clasps. Sections taken from Pratt's "Sirat Al Bunduqiyyah (Favola di Venezia)" (Sialelli, a comics fan, obtained permission to use all the illustrations in the collection) were printed on elegant fringed silk scarves, shirts and sporty jackets.

Corto Maltese's profile surrounded by seagulls was also reinterpreted as an intarsia motif on knitwear, while a famous watercolour sketch showing Corto Maltese with a cat was replicated on a jacket.

The watercolour effect worked particularly well on a trench coat with details of birds flying in the blue sky (that went well with the title of the collection - "Beach Birds" after a 1993 choreography by Merce Cunningham); further romantic touches were added to the collection via bows in Charles Rennie Mackintosh style that also featured Pratt's illustrations. 

Among the exotic elements maybe inspired by Corto Maltese's adventures in faraway countries there were the striped beanie hats made with feathers and the multicoloured feather necklaces (were they a way to homage Haute Couture houses à la Maison Lemarié that are specialised in these techniques?).

The collection also featured a juxtaposition of vintage and urban: all the bags featured Lanvin's original logo showing Jeanne Lanvin with her daughter, while most of the models wore chunky skate shoes with thick multicoloured laces in zigzag patterns.

There was also a further contrast between the men's looks that seemed poetically romantic, but also adventurous and playful, and the looks from the Pre-Fall collection that featured elegantly refined but uninteresting designs as if women weren't allowed to join Corto Maltese's wild adventures, but they could just be his companions.  

Yet there was a bit of a faux pas here: while Sialelli maybe wanted to channel in this collection the original Corto Maltese, a drifter who walks and roams the world, the playful and maybe naive component that derived from his time at Loewe reshifted the collection towards a lighter mood that reeked more of Tin Tin than of Pratt's anti-hero. In future Sialelli will have to leave behind his past if he wants to give a genuinely new identity to Lanvin. 

Like a Modern Samurai: Undercover A/W 2020 Vs Akira Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood"

Taking inspiration from a film for a fashion collection can be tricky: some designers, for example, tend to interpret the inspirations too literally, coming up with garments that look like costumes.

This is certainly not the case with Undercover's Jun Takahashi who explored in previous collections the possibilities offered by Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", the dystopian world of Alex and his fellow droogs in "A Clockwork Orange", Walter Hill's The Warriors and Luca Guadagnino's "Suspiria".

For his A/W 2020 menswear collection Takahashi moved again from a movie – this time it was Akira Kurosawa's 1957 black and white film "Kumonosu Jo", literally "Castle of the Spider's Web", better known as "Throne of Blood".

The film is a version of Macbeth, relocated in the 16th century Sengoku period, so in feudal Japan, and it follows the vicissitudes of warrior Washizu, interpreted on the screen by actor Toshiro Mifune.

The film features a very physical scene with Toshiro Mifune trying to avoid a shower of arrows raining on him.

Despite the fact that Mifune wore boards underneath his costume to protect himself, he looks genuinely scared in this scene as he was really subjected to this frightening deluge of arrows fired at him by master archers.

The realism of the scene was produced by the arrows zipping close by, hitting the wooden building behind the actor and getting stuck in the walls.

Showcased at the Cirque d'Hiver-Bouglione in Paris (where the prolonged strikes caused its delay for almost an hour...), Takahashi's runway featured a section reminiscent of this iconic scene.

Washizu here was reinterpreted by a young man in a black layered ensemble and a white wool rope around his shoulder. He first had his encounter with the forest spirit that seemed to be hiding in what looked like a white mountain of fabric in the centre of the stage.

After the spirit, brought to life by three women hiding under the fabric, seduced the young warrior, foretelling his fate, there was the recreation of the arrow scene as a piece of interpretative dance.

Washizu danced and avoided a deluge of arrows raining down from the ceiling, getting stuck on the runway floor, creating an impressively dramatic effect.

And if the mood of the runway was inspired by a film that reset an English play from Scotland to Japan, the clothes - both men and women's wear - were a combination of Japanese and Western styles.

It was easy to spot samurai armours, but also the attire of hikyaku, that is couriers or messengers active in the Medieval times in Japan, recombined with Western-style outfits.

So a hoodie was matched with Nikkapokka pants, and geta sandals often accessorised ensembles that may have been filed under the streetwear category, elongating the silhouette.

Samurais headed to battle were evoked by striped haori jackets matched with striped stir up pants that contributed to give the ensemble an effect reminiscent of Courrèges; classic winter jackets were enriched with details borrowed from samurai armors - they were quilted, ribbed and decorated with studs, recombined with leather and knitted panels to create striking yet very wearable soft armours.

The knitwear offer hinted maybe at Mongolian rather than Japanese or Western styles, and conjured up nomadic adventures in faraway lands and in hostile climates.

Clothes were layered (a key trend for the next season), with longer pieces used as the base for shorter designs, while jackets at times combined sections of two different garments together creating asymmetrical and unbalanced, but intriguing effects.

Fabrics in contrasting graphic patterns - checks, plaids and tartans - were also juxtaposed to textiles with Oriental motifs.   

Toshiro Mifune who played Washizu in the film then appeared in the prints on the puffer jackets and hoodies that will definitely be among the best selling pieces of the collection.

There was also a section dedicated to elegance with knitted kimono coats and silk dresses with orange chrysanthemums that, rather than hinting at the unsettling female figures in the film (the forest spirit and Asaji / Lady Macbeth), elevated the collection, adding to it a refined edge.  

In his film Kurosawa moved from Shakespeare, but he integrated in the story different inspirations, including Noh theatre and Japanese history.

Takahashi did the same, avoiding culture plagiarism in favour of developing his own fashion narrative that, retelling a story of loyalty, betrayal and tragedy, proved that traditions can be brought forward and reinvented with spectacular effects.

Fight Back with Colours (But Avoid Cultural Appropriations): Comme des Garçons Homme Plus & Comme des Garçons Shirt A/W 2020

As seen in a previous post, some designers may react to the feelings of anger and frustration they may be experiencing in their lives using dark and somber tones in their collections, but Rei Kawakubo seems to prefer a colourful resistance.

Comme des Garçons Homme Plus A/W 2020, showcased during the menswear shows in Paris, was the first collection after last year's trilogy that started with the S/S 20 menswear collection, continued with the S/S 20 womens' show and culminated in the costumes for Olga Neuwirth's "Orlando", that debuted in December in Vienna.

In this trilogy Kawakubo explored gender identity, duality, freedom of opinion and the possibility of breaking the rules imposed on people by society.

For Comme des Garçons' Homme Plus A/W 2020 Kawakubo focused instead on less intense and more playful moods: in some cases models donned layered looks, in others colourful fabrics were integrated in the same jacket, creating optical illusions and giving the impression the models were wearing more than one garment or were wearing a jacket inside out. 

Jackets came in colourful patchwork motifs, clashing animal prints such as leopard spots in bold and bright shades, stripes and checks, plaids and Harlequin diamond patterns.

You wonder if the colourful or black and white rhombuses were a way to hint at the fact that "Commedia dell'Arte" references and moods often resurface in times of crisis or if the way the models seemed to wear inside out jackets and coats, revealing their colourful patterns and textures was a reference to the Edo period (when sumptuary law banned bright colours and people opted for gorgeous patterns in the lining of their garments), yet Kawakubo didn't explain much about these references.

Among the highlights of the collection there were the jackets, but also the versatile knits in colourful geometrical patterns and geometrical blocks of colours, matched with surreal necklaces decorated from long wigs.

There was instead a major faux pas in the collection for what regarded the hairstyle: models wore bleach blond, black or two-tone braided wigs and people on social media soon accused the brand of cultural appropriation.

Kawakubo collaborator Julien d'Ys explained on his Instagram page that the wigs were an attempt at recreating the styles of Ancient Egypt and Tutankhamun, so they were supposed to be a homage to an iconic Egyptian pharaoh.

Unfortunately, though, the fact that there mainly white models in the show, and two out of three black models wore their hair naturally, only ended up reinforcing the cultural appropriation accusations, so that should have been avoided. 

Kawakubo's passion for the energy of bright and bold colours was also celebrated in Comme des Garçons Shirt's collection.

Kawakubo continued in the collection her experiments on deconstructing men's shirts, jackets and coats, that were spliced, cut, reassembled and reworked in fascinating ways. 

She also turned to a collaborator for her garments - American graffiti artist Leonard Hilton McGurr, better known as Futura - while accesory-wise there was a collaboration with Asics.

Known for his work as illustrator and graphic artist and for the painted backdrops live on-stage for punk rock band The Clash in the early '80s, McGurr collaborated with the brand last year doing a drop for "CDG Black Market" pop-up.

Futura's colourful 1980s archive artwork was replicated on jackets and shirts: the best results were obtained when the shirts were deconstructed and reconstructed in classic Kawakubo style.

Some of them were reinvented with a latticed motif, in other cases circular cut-outs were carved out of the fabric, creating multiple layers of fabrics and pocket-like spaces in the designs.    

In a way, this offer - still conceptual and arty, but more functional and practical - seemed to go down better than the Homme Plus A/W 2020 collection with its tribute to Egyptian pharaohs that ended up causing a rather unpleasant controversy.

The Story of an Angry Fashion Partisan: Yohji Yamamoto Men's A/W 2020

Yohji Yamamoto is tired. This is completely understandable considering that the Japanese designer is 76 and has been working in the fashion business for over 40 years. It is also hard not feeling tired when you consider the rhythms of the modern fashion industry, radically different from the times when Yamamoto started his adventure.

Usually when people are exhausted, when someone feels their energies are drained, they stop caring and fighting. But Yamamoto reacted differently to his spiritual exhaustion: rather than giving up hopes, he decided to become a bit irreverent and to channel his anger and naughtiness into his A/W 20 menswear collection.

Showcased yesterday during the men's shows in Paris, the collection had a theme - "partisan" - a role Yamamoto felt he has taken after realising he was angry at the state of fashion today, and felt the time had come to express his anger not just through clothes, but also through words.  

The theme was introduced by the runway invitation that featured a French partisan - a woman - clenching a fist against the Nazis. Yamamoto has always been fascinated by black and white images of ordinary people, like the ones collected in a book he cherishes - Auguste Sander's lifelong photography project Man of the Twentieth Century.

While shooting his documentary about Yamamoto, "Notebook on Cities and Clothes", Wim Wenders asked the designer what fascinated him about these photographs. "In them we can find real men, or real women, human beings, wearing the reality," Yamamoto replied. "Wearing not the clothing, but wearing the reality. In there, there is my kind of ideal of clothes. Because people don't consume the clothing. People can live a life with these clothes (…) I want to make something like that."

The designer then went on to explain to the director that, at the beginning of the 19th century, for those who weren't born in a wealthy family a thick coat in winter was like a friend, it was like a member of their family because it made the wearer warm and comfortable. "I feel a strong jealousy: If people can wear my things in that way, then I could be so happy," he concluded in that documentary.

This lesson (and the benefit of owning just one good piece of design in your wardrobe that can become your loyal companion through life rather than for the next three months) came to mind during the A/W 20 runway.

Darkness prevailed, but also soft drapes and deconstructed garments: the highlights were the ample coats that you know will be forever stylish, because they are not trendy but timeless.

Yamamoto layered a series of garments underneath these coats, constructing soft shells, adding military touches or decorative elements such as long metallic chains, frog fastenings and yarns used to create random embroideries that seemed to unravel on the fabric as the models walked. 

Patchworked elements unbalanced the linearity of severe military tailoring; dungarees called to mind workwear, while anger materialised in asymmetric coats that elegantly destabilised the linearity of classic menswear, via fraying sweaters, coats embellished with the slogan "Naughty Yohji" and in the blood red shade that injected pure punk rage in some of the designs.

There was also a little bit of history in the collection: colourful silk scarves seemed to sprout from the lining of the jackets in a romantic way and Japanese artist Suzume Uchida (who collaborated in previous Yamamoto menswear collections coming up with illustrations of her enigmatic ghost-like women and monsters that have become very popular with a younger generation of Yamamoto fans), created this time images of women wearing stage costumes that were used for the lining of some of the designs.

These references are directly linked with the Edo period: at the time sumptuary law stated that people couldn't wear bright colours. So people created a sort of invisible fashion or "uramasari", opting for gorgeous and luxurious patterns in the lining of their garments that so became the locus for self-expression.  

August Sander once stated about his portraits, "I wish to give neither a critique nor a description of these people, but only to create a piece of contemporary history with my pictures, a little romance in a materialistic age." In a way Yamamoto is doing the same with his designs, creating contemporary history through timeless clothes, spreading a little bit of sartorial romance in an age in which quantity has replaced quality. And if in this case romance is tinged with anger, so be it, genuine rebels are desperately needed in the current fashion industry.

Tanka for a Star: Suzume Uchida's "Everlasting Stars" @ Mitsukoshi-Nihonbashi, Tokyo

Life can be incredibly surprising at times. And so it happened that, in the last few years, Japanese artist Suzume Uchida went from exorcising her anxieties and fears through her works, to collaborating with Yohji Yamamoto and creating illustrations of haunting spirits for the fashion designer's menswear collections. The new year opened for Uchida with another collaboration, this time with a poet and writer.

While she was on a plane heading to Paris to see Yamamoto's latest menswear show (taking place this afternoon), her latest exhibition had just opened in Japan.

The event, entitled "Everlasting Stars", opened indeed yesterday on the 7th floor of the Tokyo-based department store Mitsukoshi-Nihonbashi (until January 20th). The exhibition features Suzume Uchida's art and the writing of award-winning poet Ayako Noguchi Member of the Future Tanka Association.

Last year Uchida started a very personal project, a sort of correspondence with Noguchi: the artist would send a painting or a drawing and the writer would respond with a tanka. Tanka (meaning "short song") poetry refers to a Japanese 31-syllable poem, traditionally written as a single, unbroken line and featuring different figures of speech, including personifications, metaphors and similes.

Suzume Uchida employs quite a few metaphors in the works included in this compact exhibition: the title of the event doesn't for example refer to an actual star, but to a light that, shining bright in our hearts can lead us out of darkness, while "Portrait of a girl and a pigeon" is a metaphorical representation of light and darkness coexisting in the world, and the drawing of hands holding a dead dove does not actually conjure up visions of death, but uses this final piteous gesture to hint at the weight of life. 

As she sent her images and received the tanka compositions, Uchida realised her artworks and the tanka poems worked well together, as they complemented each other. In some cases, the poems almost helped the artist visualising better the meaning of her works, revealing hidden truths that were invisible to the eye, but that became clearer once they were turned into soft spoken words.

"Everlasting Stars" by Suzume Uchida, Mitsukoshi-Nihonbashi, 7th Floor, 1 Chome-4-1 Nihonbashimuromachi, Chuo City, Tokyo 103-8001, Japan, (until 20th January 2020), from 10.00am to 7.00pm (closing at 6.00pm on 20th January).

Modular Tailoring & High-Tech Transformative Wardrobes: Fendi Men's A/W 2020 (With Some Help from Anrealage)

Introducing genuine innovations in fashion is not impossible, but at times it can be hard, due to the relentless fashion rhythms that may not allow a designer to experiment enough with a technique, or to limited financial resources.

When it comes to menswear it can be even more tricky, especially when it comes to established fashion houses who may be intrigued by the idea of introducing changes, but may also be worried that more traditional consumers may not find them suitable to their tastes.

Silvia Venturini Fendi may have been wondering how to introduce such innovations for a while and she eventually found a way to do it – teaming up with a collaborator. After the LVMH Prize event last year, she contacted one of the finalists, Kunihiko Morinaga.

Morinaga is the creative mind behind Japanese brand Anrealage and he is known for his experiments revolving around lights and shadows, darkness, reflective fabrics, volumes and proportions and conceptual tailoring.

The designer also worked on coding static noise into textile patterns, while, as you may remember from a previous post, for his presentation at the LVMH Prize Morinaga looked at sustainable fashion, but also at photosensitive fabrics and photonic-crystal fibers. 

Venturini Fendi, struck by Morinaga's photochromic garments in the LVMH prize presentation, featuring designs that changed colour when exposed to light and that included a white ensemble that could turn almost black and a white cardigan on which an Argyle pattern in colour materialised under the light, invited Morinaga to collaborate on Fendi's A/W 20 menswear collection. 

The results of this collaboration were presented during the recent menswear shows in Milan with Morinaga fresh from Pitti Uomo in Florence, where he showcased a menswear capsule collection with Tokyo Knit, an association of 180 Japanese knitwear specialists, among them producers and dyers.

On Fendi's runway the themes of change and transformation were first applied to classic tailoring with gray wool jackets and coats turned inside out with the padded lining used as a decorative motif on the external part of the garment, almost to remind us that a well-constructed item looks good even inside out.

Pockets also went through an updating process, and were turned into a series of functional compartments for a variety of small objects and accessories, from credit cards to smartphone and earpods to prove that accessories could be integrated into garments.  

In other cases coats and jackets went through a modular treatment with zippered panels (at times in different tones of flannel) that could be removed to shorten or lengthen the garment and create a coat and long or cropped jacket in a bolero-style.

The same process was applied to furs that were constructed with three layers of modular panels. Other transformative attempts included trousers that from the back looked like a skirt or textile "illusions" with shearling imitating cashmere and vice versa.

The designs were matched with thick soled boots in bold colours including blue and dark yellow, the trademark shade of the fashion house, and were accessorised by new versions of the Baguette and Peekaboo bags and by a series of pieces inspired by the packaging of the house. They included a soft napa drawstring bag based on shoe pouches and leather bags and small trunks that looked like paper shopping bags and boxes.

An oversized scarf and a large knitted bag, pieces that emphasised the craftsmanship aspect of the collection, called to mind Anrealage's latest collection in which Morinaga played with proportions, but the designs made in collaboration with the Japanese designer actually arrived at the end of the runway in the form of photochromatic outerwear and accessories. 

Models wearing what looked like textured white coats and bags stopped along the runway and were exposed to UV lamps. From white the pieces mutated and turned Fendi yellow or generated an intricate pattern on a gray background (check these videos to see the effect in detail Download Fendi_Anrealage and Download Fendi_Anrealage_2). 

The designs included in this collection have no fixed colour, their shade changes indeed according to the environment, the intensity of UV rays, season, and city. So the items, as highlighted by the press release, will turn lemon yellow in Tokyo, while they may assume a stronger nuance of yellow in Rome, reminding in this way of the trademark yellow of the fashion house, that's why Morinaga dubbed the runway in Milan the "Yellow Impact".

The material used for this collection is an advanced version of the one employed by Morinaga in his previous studies on photochromic fabrics: the material is the world's first "photochromic polyester," consisting in a polyester yarn by Fujibo and a special dye developed by Mitsui Chemicals.

The transformative effects weren't maybe as emotional as the ones you may see on Anrealage's womenswear runways and, not knowing the brand's previous collections, the audience didn't maybe react as expected, but the concept played well with the trademark colour of the brand and with the idea of garments that can reflect the environment surrounding them.

Will this yellow fever continue to haunt Kunihiko Morinaga also in the next season? Somehow you wish the collaboration will not stop here, but will be given time to develop: Anrealage may need Fendi's expertise to expand, while Fendi needs a beautiful mind that may help it transitioning into the future.

Fendi was born as a fur boutique, but the backlash against fur has already pushed it to look for alternatives. So what's next for Fendi, an augmented reality experience or a lenticular logo pattern in Anrealage style? Who knows, maybe with the help of Morinaga, in future Fendi will go from fur to high-tech fabrics.