Debbie Harry’s memoir, Face It, was published late last year, just about the time that Junya Watanabe would have been beginning to work on his new collection. But if we’ve been seeing more of her lately (she performed at a Coach show in New York earlier this month), Harry has always lived in Watanabe’s mind’s eye. “She was the one, when he was a young man,” a P.R. rep said after the show.
That the Blondie frontwoman and punk pinup has special meaning for Watanabe was clear from the runway. Models wore rooty platinum wigs and microphone-smudged red lipstick, and Harry’s thrift shop prom dresses were spliced and diced into tulle petticoats layered under leather skirts. Then there was “Heart of Glass” and “Call Me” on the soundtrack.
Sexy by Junya Watanabe was the collection’s official theme, an email explained. That’s a concept that also happens to be trending lately, but Watanabe’s sexy is not the slinky or skin-baring kind. His bustier dresses were cut from impenetrable luggage leather and in at least one instance layered over a blazer. Bondage straps outlined and shaped the bust above double-breasted coats and single-breasted jackets, but just as often those straps acted as accessory harnesses, with quilted bags and fanny packs and hip-slung panniers hooked onto them.
Otherwise, we were treated to the kinds of deconstructions that qualify as Watanabe classics now: jackets scissored down the back and makeshift-ed back together with different ones, or simply worn as half-jackets held in place with a shoulder strap or belt. All this was marched out on winklepicker booties made in collaboration with Tricker’s, the English footwear company.
This was Watanabe’s love letter to Harry, but the resulting message wasn’t so much “call me” as “watch out” or, maybe, “thank you, but I’m self-partnered.” That seems like the right adjustment for our times and for the designer’s fans.
