There was a celebratory air to tonight’s Toga show in London, which was held in a gallery space at Somerset House—and marked Yasuko Furuta’s return to the runway after a four-year hiatus. While this break was initially prompted, unsurprisingly, by the pandemic, Furuta has used her seasonal collections in the years since as a springboard for a variety of more experimental creative projects, including a film by Johnny Dufort and an art photography series by Liv Liberg. These diversions may have suited Furuta nicely—her cerebral approach to design is informed by her close relationship with the Tokyo art world, so her forays into more inventive modes of presenting her clothes never feel like a gimmick—but there’s still nothing like a live show to get the blood pumping.
Thankfully, Furuta’s return to the runway did just that. The tone was set with two opening looks: a pair of roomy trench coats with puff sleeves, worn over blouses with checkered handkerchief details at the neck, first on a female model and then a male. Furuta has always taken a somewhat genderless approach to her design, but her inquiries into masculinity, in particular, this season were prompted by watching Claire Denis’s 1999 masterpiece Beau Travail, which charts a tale of obsession between French soldiers stationed in Djibouti. (To wit, the show’s mellow soundtrack concluded with a seat-shaking blast of Corona’s “The Rhythm of the Night,” which accompanies Beau Travail’s iconic final scene.)
Other highlights included a series of high-waist dresses cut from shimmering metallic jacquards and a series of riffs on motorcycle jackets, cropped and asymmetric, in jet black and blazing red. Artfully draped dresses carried a satisfying swish, while the razor-sharp tailoring played with proportions, pairing linebacker shoulders with cinched waists. There was the charming addition of roses, bunnies, and butterflies as brooches to bring a touch of sweetness. And a special shout-out, too, for the killer shoes, which took the steel-toe caps of traditional workwear boots and expanded them into spearlike, hand-finished golden cones.
Furuta opted for a salon-style show, with the intimacy meaning you could truly see the clothes (and also occasionally see yourself, thanks to the reflective gold panels on the floor). This is the kind of fashion that deserves to have every detail absorbed, after all: rigorously designed but playful, avant-garde but accessible, meticulously constructed but still unfussy. It’s great to have Furuta back on the runway.
