The danger in the kind of success that Sacai’s Chitose Abe enjoys is that her clothes begin to look familiar. We see them everywhere now: in the front row, in street style pictures, and, it follows, in the knockoff stores. What to do? The Japanese designer hasn’t rewritten her rule book for Pre-Fall, but she has smartly added a few new pages. To start, she played around a bit with silhouette. Rarely have any of her collections put such a big emphasis on pants. Her flares looked great; they might wind up on the sales floor minus the buckled straps at mid-thigh. Quilted tech fabric skinnies could’ve come off the ski slopes or the motocross track; they added a sporty vibe to lace dresses and tunics. Denim is another area she’s largely ignored until now. Here, she patched different washes together on a shift dress and a generously proportioned pullover and skirt. Edges were left raw, like the let-out hems on much-loved jeans.
Abe’s followers anticipate her cold-weather collections; few designers are as expert at a statement-making coat as she. Vying for that title this season was a trench with a removable fur collar and bell sleeves cinched at the bicep like her flares, color-blocked puffer anoraks worn back to front, and oversize patchwork parkas. The back-to-front idea may never resonate as loudly as her signature hybrids (there were plenty of those here, too), but we bet we’ll be seeing her orange and yellow shearling pullover “fleece” on the scene this time next year.
