The crazy math boffin in Junya Watanabe’s brain came out today, and dominated his show. Watanabe’s fascination with advanced math and geometry is no new thing. A glance at his history proves just how frequently he’s devoted himself to cutting, crimping, and stamping out fabric as if he’s applying mathematical formulas to clothing the female form—and no doubt, with the aid of laser-cutting technology and computer science, although he is never one to step forth and discuss his processes. Meanwhile, it’s not much of a shot in the dark to guess there’s a more historical cultural link with the Japanese art of origami in Watanbe’s interests.
The surprise in his Fall collection was that he didn’t offer anything other than variations on the theme of 3-D cutting and origami-like structures, which were made in industrial neoprene. Usually with Watanabe, one waits for passages and sequences, where he develops themes in different ways, often very poetic and emotionally stirring ones which allude to the history of fashion or echo the noises of contemporary life. This time, it was more like a pure geometry class, and a slightly arid experience for those who would rather analyze his poetry.
