Scene setting: Two seasons ago, Junya Watanabe staged his A/W 2017 show in the halls of Paris’ Faculty of Pharmacy, but for A/W 2018, the Japanese designer took guests deep into the underbelly of the building, directing them downstairs into its stark tiled corridors, lined with glass display cases and patchy paint. The campus location of the show emphasised the sports hall sensibility of its accompanying collection, with Watanabe pairing his punky deconstructed signatures and hybrid silhouettes with bright spandex leggings, striped socks, stompy Buffalo boots and geeky aviator glasses.
Mood board: The collection had all the Watanabe hits, like deconstructed suiting, with the sleeves of pinstripe blazers billowing like capes, leather jackets boasting architectural bulges, shirts and trenchcoats fanning across the body in pleats. Watanabe’s punk aesthetic is apparent in the way he cuts and splices his garments and favours animal prints and tartans, but there was also a sense of eighties post-workout ease to the collection, seen in those Spandex leggings, paired with fluffy mohair jumpers and fur coats. Watanabe favours practical performance pieces in his menswear line, and has collaborated with The North Face and Canada Goose on his outerwear. For A/W 2018 this aesthetic infiltrated his women’s designs, seen in boxy puffer jackets and A-line anoraks.
Best in show: Hybrid styles are essential to Watanabe’s output, and the designer splices garments together into new innovative forms. For A/W 2018, he presented a series of pretty tea dresses, their shapes cut and pasted with knitwear necklines and sleeves.
