Dressed in pink faux fur while eating Bircher muesli at the breakfast bar of her hotel (where Arsène Wenger was also installed), Yoon Ahn on Saturday morning pivoted her attention from her supporting role at Kim Jones’ “Dior-core” delight (props, ACM) to her own Ambush main event. Refreshingly frank, she said: “Since we expanded from jewelry into clothing it’s been a process of experimentation. And I’m not going to pretend I’ve got all the answers. But after a few seasons of doing apparel, I’m starting to understand there are certain things I keep coming back to and developing. And I think it is these things that must be me.”
Next month we are going to see the debut Ambush show, long overdue, presented in Milan. This is where the Ambush studio, sibling in the New Guards stable of labels including Off-White and Marcelo Burlon, is physically based. But speaking refreshingly in-person with this Tokyo-based creative made it clear she is operating on a level beyond borders. The one adjective she kept returning to when considering both this “Workshop” collection (the term under which Ambush pre collections are categorized) and next month’s “Wardrobe & Artisanal” (mainline) was “sensual”—yet she was sanguine about the domain in which the senses of her audience are currently aroused.
This season there was an emphasis on the sustainable, with this young brand’s first committed foray into organic and recycled fabrication. The second emphasis was on technology—apparently a treatment applied to the collection’s knits means they alter coloration according to the light—and injected panel outerwear designed to maximize volume and minimize weight. These were all preambles to a collection to come that is still manifesting but which is taking fascinating shape.
