Naohiro Fujisaki’s spring 2024 Meanswhile present was a very long time coming. After his first runway for fall 2020 was canceled as a result of pandemic, the 37-year-old spent the previous few years honing the model and constructing as much as this second.
Fortuitously for Fujisaki, there have been no false begins tonight. The present occurred on the vast rooftop of Tokyo’s Palace Facet Constructing, the setting solar and the distant silhouette of Mt. Fuji on one aspect and a forest of glittering skyscrapers on the opposite. That every little thing unfolded exactly because the sky started to darken appeared by design, as a result of the gathering was about traversing area: transferring between the built-up metropolis and the pure world; the warmth of summer season and chill of winter; gentle and darkness.
Fujisaki, like fairly just a few designers in Tokyo, operates within the realm of restrained technical put on. Nylon wrap-skirts, tarp-covered sleeves and gaiters, and satisfyingly cumbersome bombers with numerous pockets sat on the extra industrial-feeling aspect of the gathering— complemented by architectural prints that he’d collaborated on with the Finnish photographer Ola Kolehmainen. These have been balanced with gentler particulars. Notably genius have been the fisherman vests, crafted not from nylon or polyester however delicate knitted cotton—they felt grandad-ish in the easiest way.
Then got here squishy-looking blanket coats ok for sleeping in, in addition to a trendy tackle kuchofuku—jackets with electrical followers integrated within the aspect that you just’ll typically see workmen in Japan sporting to maintain cool in summer season. There have been additionally reflective silver patches that appeared like blobs of mercury caught on the backs of jackets (cool-looking, but additionally useful for being seen at the hours of darkness), and a Pleats Please-esque hoodie set-up that wouldn’t look amiss on the couch or the subway.
“Garments might be broadly divided into two sides: costume-like points and instruments for day by day requirements,” defined Fujisaki after the present. “I entered the style trade as a result of I initially preferred the costume-y aspect of it, however I don’t assume the trade is in a great place proper now, so I’m attempting to replace it in my very own approach by presenting garments as instruments reasonably than simply costumes.”
With a lot speak in style about post-streetwear this, WFH wardrobe-that, the easy thought of helpful garments that look good and may adapt to a mess of eventualities is a balm. That’s maybe why Fujisaki’s present tonight had a touch of the futuristic about it. Not within the miserable, apocalyptic approach that we’ve all grow to be used to when fascinated with the longer term, however in the way in which it introduced one thing that appears ahead with positivity and goal. There may be hope but.
