Via a very careful translator, Fumito Ganryu said before this show: “In fashion, and with clothes, certain color combinations seem wrong. But if you look at nature, you will see all of these colors together, and they work very well.” That was the starting point of a collection that made a point of allowing nature to be the architect of much of the color palette. Ganryu said he’s a freak for National Geographic’s Instagram feed, and with his assistants he assembled a huge shortlist of sky images, seascapes, star-scapes, and forest canopy images from which to create the prints for the opening section of garments.
Unless outerwear, these looks placed the sky images above the waist and the earth-level imagery below. With the exception of the first of two hugely oversize duffle coats—whose construction was inspired by that of the kimono, but which also created a complete-with-cincture monk’s habit effect—these pieces were relatively orthodox backdrops for his prints. Then, after a striped intermission, Ganryu returned with a section that slightly reminded of old-school Benetton campaigns in their adjacency of intensely colored, apparently mundane garments (which close inspection revealed were made in beautifully finished cotton and nylons). Finally, via a great “trench coat robe” wonderfully slashed on the left side for insouciant swooshing, the sun slowly set via some gray-to-black suiting featuring super-volumized pants and attractive box-pleat jackets. These pieces looked dull in comparison to the opening natural panorama pieces, but even without the scenery, they were attractive menswear destinations.
