“London is a great testing ground for young brands that don’t have much background,” said JiSun Park. Maybe something was lost in translation, there, or she was being modest? Blindness does have background: Park and her codesigner, KyuYong Shin—30-year-old South Koreans—have been showing in Seoul since 2016, and were shortlisted last year for the LVMH Prize. They were welcomed as on-schedule visitors to London Fashion Week Men’s this season for the first time because their ethos of gender-neutral design (hence the name, implying gender-blindness) makes them a natural fit with what’s going on here. “There’s so much diversity in London. And we don’t see any boundaries, no gaps between our cultures.”
Anyone who’s been paying attention knows that they’ve been playing with pearls as a signature embellishment, and using facial coverings, frills, flounces, and a touch of Edwardian dandyism, for a while. This time, there were pearl-bound blindfolds, a little like wedding garters, signifying to the designers the obsessional blindness of first love.
The romantic streak—the tulle coat that opened—was counterbalanced, at the beginning, with a Burberry-like checked shirtdress; another, made of prints much like the Queen’s headscarves, played on beige trenchcoats. They messed with banker-stripe shirting, adding toga-like drapes, and lined a waterfall cape with tartan.
Whether or not this is strictly a menswear collection is a quibble few in fashion will raise anymore. What counts, beyond the now normalized diverse casting, is the question of whether the clothes themselves impress. With Blindness, it was the tailoring that ultimately distinguished the collection, including the Edwardian puffed sleeves on jackets with matching shorts, and the same silhouette in an imposingly chic black overcoat. The last exit—a black shorts suit, a white foulard shirt, and a red tulle coat—had a rakish, couture drama about it as it swept off the stage.
