Junya Watanabe’s Techno Couture collection followed on the heels of his acclaimed Function and Practicality show, which featured simulated rain that proved his transformable get-ups were, indeed waterproof. For Fall his focus shifted from water to air. Despite his play with volumes, Watanabe’s Fall collection is perhaps the most ethereal he has ever created.
“One didn’t have to be a professional seamstress to understand the hard work that had been put into creating those large forms yet keeping the texture so delicate,” says model Vicky Andrén, 16 years after wearing them on the runway. “The outfits were perhaps not what I would be wearing on a daily basis.” She remembers them “mainly because the collection quite literally ‘stood out’ in such an extraordinary way.”
At first glance, the honeycomb ruffs Junya Watanabe showed in his Fall 2000 Techno Couture collection called to mind those seen in Rembrandt portraits, but we’re guessing those starched confections couldn’t fold and be stored in an envelope, like Watanabe’s. They certainly weren’t made of a “techno” fabric like polyester chiffon, from which the designer created his up-to-date and exaggerated take on the ruff, transforming it from an accessory to a garment with an organic-meets-space-age aesthetic. The material might have been unknown in Rembrandt’s time, but its method of production—hand sewing—certainly was.
