Junya Watanabe let it be known he had No Theme this season. Was this, then, a straightforward case of an it-is-what-it-is collection? Just a candid lineup of oversize jackets and coats, and leggings worn with super-chunky ’90s-throwback Buffalo shoes? But no, that wasn’t what it was, at least in quite a few cases. There was a trick: Several of these outfits came joined together, so that—for example—a tailored jacket and pleated skirt became one garment, or a slip dress, layered over a Norwegian sweater, was fused with a different gray sweaterdress in back.
Junya Watanabe’s approach to fashion is—refreshingly—to make it look decidedly un-fashion. He has been working on making his men’s collection look as generic as possible for a long time, collaborating with an encyclopedic array of brands—North Face, Carhartt, Levi’s, and more—to import the masculine aura of authentic workwear to a fashion context. This collection was maybe his parallel coolness solution for women: looking at the kind of clothes kids once hoped to find in vintage markets and replicating them with added design bonuses.
That would make sense of his playing around with bad ’80s chintz, oversize pilled Scandinavian sweaters, raincoats, grandma floral dresses, and grandpa suits. He spun many options out of the skinny-legging-big-top proportions he pursued single-mindedly throughout. We appreciate his message.
