The White Mountaineering presentation opened with designer Yosuke Aizawa s first full capsule collection for Adidas Originals (previously, he had only created footwear for the athletic behemoth). The 10 body-con looks—all in a palette of gray, blue, black, and white—reinterpreted essential sports layers like a chef deconstructs a legendary dish. Simply by angling the iconic stripes diagonally or tweaking their tone, he made them more kinetic. The all-navy sneakers were Aizawa s strongest contribution; again, nothing reinvented yet noticeably finessed. Or, as Nic Galway, vice president of global design at Adidas Originals, put it: "He looks forward while staying true to the archive."
While there s no question as to the compatibility of these mates, the designer was at peak performance when going solo. Here, he operates outside the playbook, unafraid to imbue his functional apparel with a distinct flamboyance. Embroidered bulls attempted to butt heads from opposite sides of a navy blouson, and a vaguely Ottoman decorative pattern livened up a nylon combo of shell and shorts with a corresponding jacquard base layer. He took a self-referential turn by printing the pattern specifications of his garments onto the completed pieces. All the while, ruched sweatpants, T-shirts with flattened seams that eliminated stitching, finely perforated jerseys, and jackets in camo jacquard that mimicked suede reinforced Aizawa s faith in fabrication above high-octane image. Original, indeed.
