This Engineered Garments collection was all about hunting. It marked Kenta Miyamoto and Kunimasa Odagi’s third outing after they inherited control of the brand from founder Daiki Suzuki. It’s clear by now that the duo are careful custodians of the brand rather than mavericks of change. And hey, if it ain’t broke…
The breadth and depth of the label’s considerable archive, which spans nearly 30 years, allows the designers a certain amount of freedom in that they have a wide range of hits from which to draw. This season they had found enough inspiration to yield some 600 styles that sprawled across their vast Paris showroom, spanning everything from subtly updated brand classics like the Carlyle pant, which appeared in olive flannel, and the Type 5 Jean Jacket, in a tactile flocked wool herringbone and cone denim.
The team also developed a magnified camouflage, which appeared across utilitarian jackets and baggy Norwegian army pants. The hunting theme came to life most effectively in the gun club check, which was used across rain ponchos, cuffed trousers, and round-collared jackets, styled to great effect alongside louder leopard print coats, knitted blanket jackets and stag-print shirts. Think an English country walk with a Tokyo-meets-New York swagger.
Indeed, the joy of Engineered Garments is that its clothes, though relatively consistent from season to season, come together in seemingly endless permutations of worldly characters. The bolder pieces in this collection (see the orange floral fleece, sunshine yellow jacket and chicken jacquard skirt) each had potent individuality, yet still meshed together with ease. That’s testament to Miyamoto and Odagi’s keen intuition for the brand they’ve inherited.
