Akris’s Albert Kriemler has long looked to architecture as a reference, but he made the relationship explicit for Spring, teaming up with the Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto to create fabrics. Fujimoto designed London’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in 2013. Kriemler was so moved by the matrix of white steel poles that he approached Fujimoto about working together. Backstage it was hard to tell who was more excited about the collaboration—Kriemler or Fujimoto. The architect sat in the front row; it was his first fashion show.
Architecture is architecture and clothes are clothes. Bringing them together isn’t always the smoothest project. Indeed, there were a few proposals here that read as too literal: A dress made from thin strips of cork to look like wood siding with a black mesh “window” at the hip, for example, was a little on the nose.
The Forest of Music is a music hall project in Budapest with a molded round roof that has openings for trees to grow. The shirts and skirts it inspired were perhaps a tad eccentric for the Akris customer. Where the clients are concerned, the best pieces on the runway were the ones made from square slices of Perspex sealed between two layers of organza. The streamlined dresses glinted subtly; they won’t require any backstory on the sales floor. On the other hand, if the Akris woman learns about Naoshima, the Japanese island filled end-to-end with art museums and site-specific installations, including Fujimoto’s faceted pavilion, then this Akris collection was a job well done.
