“In order to find a new world, we have to go beyond reality.” So noted Rei Kawakubo to contextualize a collection whose title was the last two words of that statement. To do this she warped the fabric of tailoring’s conventional reality to create garments fitted for a new, yet to evolve human form.
The clearest footprint of the parallel universe we were being invited into was left by the shoes. Around more conventional sneakers made in collaboration with Nike ACG were black leather Oxfords, very substantial and proper, made for feet that were either cloven upwards at the bridge or out at each side. These transported tailoring that was reordered in phases.
The first laid out the scene in a series of white collared black frock coated looks in which waistbands became hems of inverted short pants. Tufts of long black hair sprouted out from the body of the suiting. Jackets were sometimes double layered, or had other jackets grafted in part or whole to them. An upside down pant camouflaged with black foliage anticipated a shift from black and white to organic. Worn over a double waisted jungle print short and netted white shirt was a same-print jacket opened at the back like the curtains of a theater in look 9, referencing across to look 28’s print on the front of a back-to-front jacket. A black satin jacket was backed with another slit open jacket from which green fabric foliage rioted like unpruned ivy. Two prince of wales check frock coats with extra armholes and skewed proportions were embroidered with what looked like old fashioned kids’ sticker packs: the martini glasses and dolphins they depicted were repeated in the Gary Card headband pieces that lay like forgotten relics in Arai Takeo’s scarecrow hair. The shirt and jacket (growing out of another jacket) in a black look featured Nintendo-era pixelated pre-emojis.
There were sections of suiting in iridescent fabrics with floating shoulders (wadding sliced open and on show) and collar backs in a punkish yellow tartan. A guy wore an urchin and martini glass in his hair above a silk frock coat hemmed in slickly shiny pins of a fish scale pattern vest. That curtain look bowed before a suit overpainted with a 19th century red British army battledress, pairs of pants hanging as if in a wardrobe, layered shirting, and more military dress. It was as if the models were wearing everything, everywhere, all at once.
