Josie Natori is toasting her company’s 40th anniversary next year, and like many designers who reach a major milestone, she’s feeling nostalgic. She’s looking back through her archives, which are justifiably expansive—she launched her label in 1977 with lingerie, a business that’s still going strong—but Natori is also drawing inspiration from the personal treasures she’s acquired over the years. She collects vintage Japanese kimonos, so for Pre-Fall she reinterpreted one as a brocade jacket. That won’t register as much of a surprise to her regular shoppers; an East Asian vibe is central to Natori’s oeuvre, with notes of her Filipino heritage mixed with rich colors and embellishments culled from trips to Istanbul or Mongolia.
In stark contrast to all of that, the most noteworthy development here was all-American: her first jeans. It’s hard to believe it took Natori four decades to experiment with denim, but she admits she was never a jeans-and-T-shirt kind of girl. “Growing up in the Philippines, I always associated jeans with a Western look,” she said. Her take on casualwear has always been a bit more elevated: tunics with matching pants, printed dresses, oversize jewelry. Her first foray into denim is likewise elevated; Natori nixed of-the-moment trends (no distressed denim here), instead incorporating her signature embroideries. Her dark-rinse jeans were cut more like trousers; styled with a matching embroidered jacket, the look was a modern update on the 9-to-5 suit. The denim trench made a bigger impact: With swirling embroideries and flared sleeves, it was the sort of thing Natori herself might layer over a cocktail dress.
