As Phil Oh’s epic photos show, fashion weeks are not short of outfits so powerful they seem to be wearing the people in them. Issey Miyake designer Satoshi Kondo’s elevator pitch for this collection was: “If garments become autonomous. If the body becomes an object.” This was an approach also explored by Kunihiko Morinaga at Anrealage this season, albeit from a different angle.
“I am autonomous” and “I am animated” were the statements made by an opening phase of carefully ‘normal’ looking clothes that seemed like they didn’t want to be here. T-shirts, knits, polos, hoodies and shirts were stiffened and volumized up around the shoulders of their human hosts as if they were attempting to escape back into the closet. Pants had pulled themselves open and belts were half-slithered away from the shackles of waistbands.
Forgotten American showman Frank Lentini would have been an excellent match for a series of garments which seemed to have a preference for humans with extra limbs: there were some striking pants with tailored shoulders and armholes emerging at each hip, and various pants and skirts with half-formed bonus leg holes and sleeves. A group of close-fitting pieces seemed keen on conspicuous consumption: they carried items including toilet paper, bottles of what looked like laundry products, and Sharpies pressed against the flesh of the humans they were wearing. The arm of a garment used the arm of a model to hold a shoe-box advertising the collaboration between Issey Miyake and Camper in this collection, which neatly suggested that this fashion show had been dressed by marketing.
There was a suggestion of garments growing out of their humans. A fitted terracotta ribbed dress sometimes burst beyond the sheer black sheath around it. A couple of super-striking pieces in green shivered with sharp succulent fronts of fabric that sometimes pushed through outer layers like blades of grass bursting through concrete. We then segued into more layered multi-limbed pieces that looked like garments evolved in some undiscovered Jurassic mall. Moving quietly through the collection were a few garments which seemed content with their chosen humans: volumized trenches, some inside-out tailoring, and serenely draped cloaked tops and pants in luscious organic colorways. Kondo’s was a fun exploration of dress sense.
