For Fall, Kolor’s Junichi Abe veered into slightly more ambitious, arty territory than he’s aimed for in recent seasons. In Paris this morning he revealed both his women’s and men’s collections, which were developed with a similar resolution (though the women’s side was a bit glitzier). “It’s kind of a three-part series of ideas. I wanted one to be . . . the opposite of the image of luxury, but done in materials that are considered luxurious,” he said. “Things that are destroyed, some of which have been partially repaired. The other was about mountaineering, but mountaineering in the ’70, before they had high-tech material, before they had Gore-Tex. And the last was patchworking.”
The best of these concepts was Abe’s anti-luxe sentiment. He showed a ratty scarf that had holes cut out from its ends—but the material was cashmere. For men, there was a textured blazer with those mock-moth-eaten abrasions, which exposed a quirky Hawaiian floral-print lining beneath. For women, there was a simple crewneck cashmere sweater, likewise maimed by hand. (Abe mentioned that he had instructed his factory staff exactly where, and how big, to make the cuts.) Another example, in womenswear: a great wool car coat in somber gray, but with bright red adhesive bandages zigzagging atop it.
The mountain climbing and patchwork stuff was also convincing and, again, freshly myriad in effect. Collegiate sweaters were chopped with misaligned necklines; rappelling whipcords were tangled and bunched around the backs of winter jackets for both sexes. What did it all amount to, then? Abe paused. “A normal elegance,” he surmised.
