Chitose Abe doesn’t have a formula for arriving at all her desirable hybrids; it’s mainly intuition, she insisted after today’s show. It turns out that the man who invented what is arguably the world’s most famous and universal formula, E=mc², was also a big believer in intuition, so Abe made his words her latest motto. Sacai with a side of Einstein was a genius move.
Backstage, she was wearing a T-shirt that read “common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18”—a quote commonly attributed to him. Abe is not, it should be said, a huge risk-taker. She allows an arbitrary inspiration to motivate a shift in layers and volumes or a shakeup in color or pattern; but you don’t get the sense she sets out to radically alter her repertoire. Instead, she experiments, innovates ,and taps into a topical subject or feeling.
And this began with women’s looks consisting of suit jackets counterintuitively worn atop military layers that gave way to a fluid skirt and punk-ish platform boots. With a trace of Janet Jackson circa Rhythm Nation, the statement was newly commanding and chic. The men’s variables included a few Mod-inflected ensembles, sweaters that unzipped up the torso, and total looks in lipstick pink that corresponded to the romantic spirit of the season. Across both collections, the usual toggling of utility and fluidity played out in animal spots and cosmic-themed bandana sketches by the tattoo artist Dr. Woo. Elsewhere, Abe relied on denim, tweed, tartan, and fleece, perhaps for no other reason than their familiarity.
Necklaces assembled from signet rings, S caps that seemed to only be worn by the women, and a soundtrack with its spliced allusions to love (and a clever extract from Einstein on the Beach) all entailed dozens of micro-intuitions that ultimately added up to a balanced equation. One imagines countless more went into the new Nike Vaporwaffle sneaker, which is even wackier and more tilted than the first design—such are the stakes today.
Perhaps the answer could be found in the Einstein T-shirt, his tongue sticking out as though mocking us for taking photos of his photo on devices called “smartphones.” Below his portrait ran the quote “I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am.”
