season 03 "x"
In last season's collection, ‘syvash,’ I expressed our sense of crisis regarding the terrible conflicts currently taking place in the world, using the theme of the ‘toxic jungle’ from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind to depict the way nature and civilisation are encroaching on each other. We drew visual inspiration from the brutalist architecture and biotope of the Barbican Centre, reflecting the intertwined structure of artificial and natural objects in the collection.
This season's collection focuses on the theme of societal indifference caused by the amplification of unnecessary attention. The initial inspiration came from a sense of discomfort I felt while listening to James Blake's song ‘Like the End.’ I feel that the media is biased towards topics related to companies and celebrities, rather than the serious conflicts and divisions that continue in distant places. On social media, ambiguous information and defamatory comments about such topics spread rapidly, and in politics, positional statements and divisive rhetoric seem to overshadow calm, rational discussion. The dissonance between excessive criticism and indifference, coupled with the sense that society as a whole is growing numb and silent as a result of amplified unnecessary attention, forms the core of this collection.
The symbol ‘x’ represents uncertainty and ambiguity, while also overlapping with the platform “X” (formerly Twitter). In an era where ambiguous information spreads chaotically and speed is prioritised over accuracy, ‘x’ represents the blurred contours of truth.
The visual inspiration for this collection draws from the film ‘The Zone of Interest’ and JH Engström's photo book ‘CDG/JHE.’ In particular, the scene in ‘The Zone of Interest’ where a young girl secretly delivers food to a detention centre at night, captured through thermography, left a strong impression with its faintly white, ethereal imagery. Drawing inspiration from this scene, we developed a material at a tannery in Tuscany, Italy, by layering black pigment over silver-dyed goat leather. The goat leather, tanned with both chrome and tannin, reveals a lustrous sheen from the lower layers when the surface is scraped. Using this material, we created a leather mountain parka. This parka is reversible with the lightest Ventile cotton. By using a lightweight yet water-repellent textile as lining, we have made it suitable for inclement weather. While somewhat simplistic, this reversible duality aligns with the theme of this season's collection. The jacket, trousers, and skirt made from black baby calf leather from Australia are designed to be unisex in terms of pattern and detail, serving as the most neutral pieces in the collection to support this theme.
The jacket, trousers, and skirt made from black baby calf leather sourced from Australia are designed to be unisex in terms of pattern and detail, serving as the most neutral pieces in the collection to support this theme. Crafted from the finest leather we have ever used, this material creates a supple drape, making these products one of the most reliable pieces of clothing to support your wardrobe.
The jacquard-patterned denim jacket and trousers were created by converting photographs of denim from the World War II era into bitmap data and aligning them with our own denim patterns, reflecting the texture of damage and details as patterns. Of course, even though it is the same denim, forcing it into my own pattern from completely different shapes inevitably creates misalignments and contradictions. I deliberately chose not to meticulously align these elements, as I felt this process aligns perfectly with the theme of this collection.
The colour scheme is based on grey, expressing restrained calmness, tension, and numbness. In contrast, the blue used symbolises the subtle awareness of future possibilities or premonitions, reminiscent of terms like ‘blueprint’ or ‘wet blue.’ The blue, as a colour of the unformed, is interwoven into the overall ambiguous tone. This colour was particularly adopted for the silk fabric. The silk moleskin has been made lighter than in the previous season and adjusted for spring and summer. By changing the warp to cotton and shortening the pile, we have created a lighter texture. The honeycomb fabric used for the shirts was chosen to visualise the ever-expanding network of information and structural chains.
The knitwear was inspired by a zebra I encountered at a zoo during the collection's creation, which was the same age as me. The average lifespan of a zebra is approximately 20 years in the wild and 30 years in captivity, so a 28-year-old zebra is quite elderly. Over the years, the contrast of its stripes has faded, and the boundaries between them have become softly ambiguous, which inspired the design of the knit fabric. The knit fabric is monochromatic, and the stripes are expressed solely through differences in the knit structure, creating a pattern that is recognisable as stripes yet retains a sense of ambiguity.
Right: Munemitsu Mutsu in his younger days
The silhouette of the hoods on coats, jackets, and hoodies was inspired by the Sōjūrō hood worn by Kurama Tengu. The headscarf is not meant to conceal his identity for stealth, but rather to hide his true identity because he tends to stand out. However, as the series gained immense popularity among children, the relationship between the ‘white-painted hero hiding his identity under the Sōjūrō headscarf’ became a established motif. Initially, the idea was to create a square hood resembling a hood by adding box pleats to the sides of the head, but a reference that perfectly suited both the silhouette and the background information was eventually found.
Loafers made from tannin-tanned leather from a historic Italian tannery feature a unique design: the heel lining is made from pig leather, which allows the heel to be flattened like a slipper or raised to resemble a dress shoe, providing two distinct styles in one.
J.H. Engström: CDG/JHE
The photography draws inspiration from the uneasy atmosphere inherent in the muted colour palette of “CDG/JHE,” as well as the contrast between abstraction and concreteness, joy and sorrow. The imagery is structured to oscillate between clarity and ambiguity, capturing the traces of fluctuation and resistance lurking within stillness. The images printed on silver semi-gloss paper retain only the faint traces of their texture when scanned.
The collection was created over approximately three and a half months, requiring a constant cycle of input and output due to the urgency of the timeline. Upon completing the production, the act of putting it into words made me realise what I had been thinking, and the songs I had been listening to or the films I had been watching began to take on meaning. This sense of threads coming together is something I had rarely experienced before creating the collection, leaving me with a strange feeling. I believe that, in continuing the collection brand, it is important for the emotions and changes in thought that arise from living as an individual in modern society to be reflected in the collection. Change is the essence of fashion, and while it may sometimes appear superficial, I believe that is a natural state of things. If change were to cease, then even as a clothing store, we could no longer be a fashion store.
I will take a short break now and then dive back into the whirlwind. If I can manage to emerge again, I may be able to bring back an even more interesting collection than before.
Please look forward to it. See you all at the exhibition!