Junya Watanabe’s show conjured a vision of innocent 18th-century milkmaids who had parachuted into a field of summer flowers. The girls seemed to have floated down from the sky under huge, airy umbrella hats, wearing drifty, white, flower-dotted prints suspended on webbing tape. Yes, webbing: in an original twist on this season’s ubiquitous combat trend, Watanabe made it look dreamily pretty. His prints, done in blue-and-white and rose-scattered fabrics, were made into cropped pants ruched into shorts and dresses hitched up at the hems. He also, thoughtfully, equipped his bucolic regiment with matching backpacks, some fused into the girls’ garments.
Watanabe’s was one of the few collections this season with a light, fresh take on summer dressing. But the designer could have made his point more effectively by editing out some of the variations on his theme, especially those in black and garish ’70s prints.
