Backstage before his fall outing, Shinpei Yamagishi of Bed j.w. Ford said that it can take him years of thinking something through before he feels as though he is ready to tackle it. The duffel coats in his show were just one example.
“In order to look into the future, I felt like I had to bring in something from the past,” he said through a translator. “I often take cues from what I have, but I need to study, research, and work on patterns until I feel like the result is what I really want to express.” He also gleaned inspiration from military garb and paid homage to the style of an iconic house on the Rue Cambon, for example, in gray or pink mohair with a chain trim.
Such exercises, he explained, were not dissimilar to occupying the booklined show venue, inside the library of Henri IV, one of the oldest and most illustrious schools in France. “In a library, there are lots of memories,” the designer offered. “Like with books, I just mark the things I love with a little post-it, and then I tried to bring them all together in one place.”
However long that took, it was worth the wait. In addition to the duffels, other coats in the designer’s collection were impeccably cut, and he showed himself an able colorist, easily mixing blues with bronze or a hot pink shirt with violet trousers and a floral knit. And while the designer says he considers this a men’s collection, jeans with hand-painted florals looked like they could have crossover appeal. Ditto the leggings, which unzip into the label’s signature flares.
As much respect as he has for the past, Yamagishi was also one of the rare designers in Paris this season who expressed optimism about the present moment. “I feel like I can renew something,” he said.
