When the three models in ochre underwear started circling the floor as DeLaurentis spoke-sang Hamlet’s “sound and fury, signifying nothing” line with crazy auto-tuned resonance, it felt briefly like some weird Yeezy aside in what had hitherto been a cheery show from Issey Miyake’s new internally appointed design director Satoshi Kondo. Then, whoa and hello! Three transparent hoop-stretched, horizontally color-striped dresses (plus hats) were lowered from their hiding place in the eaves above onto the arms-uplifted wearers. What sounded like a Fela Kuti jam (it was “African Nights” by Eric Muller and Maurin Zahnd), irresistible, started to play, and the models did what the music made you want to. As they bounced, so did the dresses, up and down against the wearer, thanks to signature Miyake springiness. It was great, the highlight moment in a show in which Kondo—please forgive the obvious gag—decluttered the careworn debris of the modern fashion experience by highlighting the potential of clothes that spark joy.
Because who wouldn’t want to dance in a dress like that? It would make you go clubbing just to be able to wear it. It would make you want to run for the bus even if you were early. Similarly: the five opening looks in soft berry-tone jersey (with the occasional torn-brimmed hat in which a crew soared in jeté leaps), or the fringe-and-net pieces a little later in which the wearers shimmied and twisted and enjoyed the kinetic back-and-forth interaction of the garments and the semicircular fringed bags they clutched. Then there were the parachute pieces, face-covering long cagoules (fine festival wear), popper-split pants in vibrant colors, or full-hemmed dresses that billowed against the air as the wearers twirled. A section of models carved cool arcs around the polished concrete floor on electrically powered skateboards, smiling real smiles and relishing the pop and snap of their double-skirted dresses in the breeze they generated behind them, urethane-born clippers at full sail.
Turning, bouncing, jumping, moving, being: This show convincingly showed clothes as a platform of experiential life enhancement, equipment in which to integrate with the world around you with pleasure. It also felt powerfully uncomplicated. Some of the garments were, well, basic, yet the fluidity of their fabrication made them appear fundamental. As the diversely cast crew of models joined hands in a circle and orbited, or ran and danced their path down the runway in front of us at the end, they seemed exalting and uplifted: There was palpable joy in the room.
