Many designers move from an art exhibition or a specific artist for their collections, but they rarely mix several arty inspirations in just one collection as this process may lead to incoherently chaotic results. Junya Watanabe chose the risky way instead with his Spring/Summer 2015 collection.
The designer combined indeed multiple arty and graphic references, borrowing them from several movements, though he seemed to pay particular attention to Futurism and Constructivism.
The first models on the runway looked as if they were wearing the sort of flat paper doll-like dresses that mime Ennio Marchetto (View this photo) would opt for during his shows, yet there was more behind the patterns and shapes on their tabard-like tops.
The first looks characterised by colourful circles in leatherette, PVC, vinyl, glittery materials and organza matched with plastic headdresses mounted on silicone swimming caps (that at times partially covered the faces of the model revealing a strip of colour blanking out one eye...), pointed towards the early futurist experiments of Bruno Munari.
The same elements in a black and azure palette called to mind Giacomo Balla's painting "Pessimismo e Ottimismo" (Pessimism and Optimism, 1923), characterised by two dynamic forces opposing each other. It looked indeed as several dynamic forces battled in just one garment designing continuous swirls, circles and half circles.
The bold graphics morphed soon into something else, maybe more austere and severe, but equally eye-striking like Aleksandr Rodchenko and Vladimir Majakovskij's adverts or the bare and simple lines of El Lissitzky's 1919 propaganda poster "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge", a perfect example of Suprematism.
Watanabe stripped his references of their original meanings and affiliations, employing them to create a visual language based on geometries and origami.
The origami were at time appliqued on dresses to give the textures three-dimensional effects, at others they were printed on the fabrics in formations reminiscent of Optical Art.
The best thing about the collection was maybe the fact that, according to your background and personal knowledge, you could spot different references: apart from the Futurists and the Constructivists, it was possible to see in the patterns and motifs Sonia Delaunay's works, the graphics of the Bauhaus, but also distant echoes of modern artists including Paolo Scheggi, Peter Hugo McClure and Bruce Gray.
In a way, it was as if Watanabe had come up with his own mathematical sequence à la Fibonacci, going from 1914 to 2014 (possibly skipping the decades marked by movements that didn't produce anything too graphically strong), reinventing everything in a fun and exuberantly joyous key.
There were obvious references to Comme des Garçons's A/W 2012 flat collection (the flatness and some of the colour combinations...), though they were taken to a personal level through wearable shirts with trompe l'oeil prints of biker jackets decorated with exaggerated patent circle shoulders that looked cartoonish but not ridiculous.
Motifs of what looked like dress-patterns (in black/white/gray or in a combination of different shades) were also reinvented and applied to tops and skirts.
Art is definitely here to stay in fashion, but Watanabe proved that, even in our mechanical (and rather depressing) age, you can mix it with sporty and experimental elements, a healthy dose of optimism and humour and the proper levels of abstraction, modernity and vigour.
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Comments