The elephant in the room at the Westin seemed to have been cremated—a five-ish-meter-wide pile of ashy gray fluff with two vague hillocks of ashy gray fluff rising up from it. Two models in solid sculpted gray dresses by artist Kohei Naha stepped carefully out on the parquet barefoot, then into the fluff/ash, then up onto the hillocks. These contained hidden turntables, which slowly rotated them for the rest of the show.
As well as Naha’s involvement, the notes revealed that the cremated elephant in the room was absolutely not an elephant, but a pile of unspun denim. Designer Kunihiko Morinaga had been losing himself—à la Dante, Yeats, Möbius, me sometimes, and many more before him—in mind-bending contemplation of time and eternity, as represented by circles and spirals and never-ending twists. This old (but totally compelling) wormhole of a train of thought was rather beautifully extrapolated into a series of worn pieces complemented by spiraling kiss-curls, clear pearlescent beads at the ear and wrist, inlaid heels, and earrings.
The first two looks wrapped the wearers in tiers of white silk, while the next few integrated the twists of ribbons into more orthodox dresses. There were some highly interesting, but problematic-to-put-on bomber jackets with incorporated spirals of zipper that arced from the back of the collar, wrapped around and around the body, and ended at the hem. A dress the notes said was carved out of a single block of denim must have been a mighty project to complete, an exercise in precise stripping away. The final dress was just as impressive technically, but an exercise in building up: contour upon contour of gray felt, layered into a dress. This was a compelling show. At the end, there was nothing but a pile of denim-dust imprinted with footprints. And, of course, two hidden turntables.
