Serafina Sama began designing this collection with Japan in mind, knowing that she would be making her first visit once production was already under way. Accordingly, some of the referencing—including the black-and-white counterculture photography of Watanabe Katsumi—would have begun as an idealized vision, only to be followed up with actual experience. Compared to her previous outing, this one showed improved coherence by returning to her signature washed poplin, plus summery plaid, to reinforce vaguely punk feminine looks. The trench at the start of the lookbook, with its pleated back and belt reconceived as removable bondage-style straps, would have served her well in Japan, for instance, and many of the flatter dresses and cropped pants—including her foray into denim—seemed conducive to travel. On a phone call from London, the designer reiterated that she is often guided by contrast; and the burgundy PVC pants with an inner white poplin ruffle waistband—especially as paired with the striped twinset—proved neatly balanced (needless to say, the black fabric version will get far more wear). She described the shirting studded like bra tops and necklaces as “decadent, but also relaxed—not pretentious.” Wear one and expect people to ask where they can get their own.
With assistance from her frequent collaborator, artist Helen Bullock, Sama treated cherry blossoms without the preciousness that the flowers usually evoke, instead juxtaposing the graphic branches with sporadic stamped polka dots à la Yayoi Kusama. The asymmetries and lightly conceptual volumes recalled ’80s Japanese designers without trying to be avant-garde. But the hair in these images took the theme to the extreme. Let’s chalk it up to Sama’s animated personality. She didn’t emblazon T-shirts with Isa Arfun for nothing.
