“I started the collection looking at one of those Double Trouble puzzles kids try to untangle,” explained Hidenori Kumakiri, the soft-spoken creative force behind the cult Japanese label Beautiful People. The toy in question is a metal key chain where two intertwined rings have to be separated. It’s the sort of brainteaser that a gifted kid could solve in a few minutes, while the rest of us, after countless clumsy attempts, are left screaming in frustration. Just Google the diabolic thing to get the idea. But apparently, no riddle or charade is too complicated for Kumakiri.
The concept of complex simplicity is often at the center of this designer’s aesthetic; he worked around it once again in his new Spring collection. His deconstruction process was as gentle as it was sophisticated: “Two identical shapes are tightly entangled; to take them apart, you have first to understand how they work together,” he mused. “Only then you’ll be able to make them become a new entity with a new identity. In my collections, pieces may look broken or deconstructed, but in the end, they go back together as one.”
The show’s fluid rhythm smoothed the conceptual edge of the inspiration, giving the collection’s transformative quality an ineffable grace. Each piece could morph into a multiplicity of solutions or mutate into a different shape just by unlacing a ribbon, unwrapping a fold, or peeling off a layer. As complicated as it may sound, this reversible, unfinished process of transformation actually looked rather effortless.
Fabrics were light and crinkled; dyed in white or red wine to achieve a delicate palette of earthy hues, they felt smooth and sensuous to the touch. To highlight the wabi-sabi organic approach, tailored jackets were washed in salt to make them shrunken; they were paired with pleated silk skirts or ruffled dresses, which wrapped elliptically around the body. They looked like antique Japanese fans, or exotic blooming flowers. Deconstruction was handled with a breezy feel; linings were absent, while a play on asymmetries gave classic shapes an off-kilter freshness and a sense of lightness and fluidity.
At the end of the show, to better elucidate the morphing concept, a flock of assistants came onstage helping models to transform their outfits into slightly different shapes. “You can be either deconstructed or constructed,” Kumakiri said. “It’s up to you. It’s about being free, with no constrictions. In Japan, we never choose between extremes; we don’t have black or white, but we have many, many hues of gray. It’s like being in a fluid zone, where you can choose to be what you want to be.”
