Juniche Abe makes clothing that snags the fabric of your assumptions as to what clothes “should” look like, in a fascinating way. After several pre-pandemic years of showroom appointments with Kolor, he returned to Paris Fashion Week to present a live show that was wonderful to watch.
Abe said backstage that he aimed for an approximate golden ratio of around 75% “simple” clothes to 25 “complicated.” But in truth, it was more complicated than that. From the inverted tongue trainers (great) to the series of pieces that seemed to have skewed their wearers like a half-blended smoothie, with overlapping lapel, collar, hem, and pocket twisted around the central fulcrum of the human within, almost every garment seemed to have a trick up its sleeve(s).
Subtle details that broke the conventional harmony of clothing arrested your attention; the hanging mesh hem on only the left leg of a sports-short, or the cutaway panel in a skirt that subverted the implication of length. Speaking of skirts, the full-length striped nylon example in Look 4 was wonderful. Why does sportswear ignore this garment? Apparently conventional checked tailoring was slyly radicalized by split armholes and competing flashes of color. This was a collection both about collars (the most messed-with element in Abe’s ostensibly anarchic but in reality highly considered process) and colors—there were many beautiful contrasts and choices made here.
During this show Abe played some Shazam-resistant freeform jazz, all enraged-bee percussion below scattergun horn. The collection read to the eye as a form of jazz played out through fashion. It was anything but easy listening, but once you gave it your full attention the rewards were highly stimulating and satisfying.
