“I believe that the distance of travel is proportionate to creativity,” Yosuke Aizawa said backstage before his show in Paris. Though the designer lives and works in Tokyo, he’s happiest when he’s out in the hinterlands of Nagano prefecture, two hours away.
Snowboarding, motorcycling, and hitting the road in a vintage car (Porsche 961 or 928, preferably) are his hobbies, and the emotion of travel is his baseline, he said, adding that he always bears in mind a quote by his favorite author, Henry Miller: “One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.”
On the runway, he presented menswear that looked self-sufficient enough to move through life more or less unencumbered, save perhaps for a bag made in collaboration with Outdoor Products. Elsewhere, so-called bag jackets featured pockets set asymmetrically in front, with a larger one in the back that made a solid case for never bothering with a backpack again.
Colorful daywear in hues of purple, blue, mustard, and burgundy was informed by outdoorsy preppy style; Fair Isle knits were paired with a technical jacket or a three-pocket herringbone coat. The patch knits and earth-toned flannels looked on point too.
Aizawa often says that his idea of sustainability is things that you can wear for a really long time. Solutions like the ones shown here have brought collaborations with Globe-Trotter, Timberland, Reebok, and, soon, Uniqlo—which makes White Mountaineering something of a little brand that could.
