Few designers will have as much impact this season, for men or women, as Chitose Abe, whose Sunday afternoon show in Paris was a smash hit of composite cool and assembled attitude.
Staged inside the Carreau du Temple, a late 19th-century market building of glass and wrought iron, this was an epic show. The location is well known for hosting some of the most legendary shows by master designers: Helmut Lang, Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo, Riccardo Tisci, Pierpaolo Piccioli and Giambattista Valli, to name a few.
Add Abe to that roll call, with her nomadic superhero parkas, padded Mao jackets and giant pants for guys. Seen before bravura Himalayan mohair sweaters and Black watch kilts. Best of all the composite trench meets spy-coat in vertical panels of rubberized cotton and felty wool.
The collection was the last truly major show in the two-week and three-city menswear international season which began in Florence on Monday evening, Jan 8.
In a co-ed collection, the women’s wear was if anything even more audacious. Abe dreamed up sensational down cocoon waistcoats, over plissé silk skirts both with deep military pockets; gilets with enormous lamb of mutton sleeves attached and baseball jackets with fur trim. All in a Space Age silvery hue.
Abe also linked with New York graphic artist Marc Gonzales, whose skateboard and quirky lettering homages featured in around 10 looks. Mainly on sweatshirts and tops, but also sewn onto this composite tailoring. Cloth badges reading Gonz and Sacai, Sacaigonz, Good Vibes Tribe, or even seen in fake military distinctions. One top was simply a hand raising a finger over the caption One Love. The same that Abe wore herself when she took her bow to huge applause.
“Recently there was a very shocking thing happened in my life, so I wanted to celebrate life, by creating a united and informed collection, sending love,” said Abe in Japanese backstage post-show.
She also paired brilliantly curved sheepskin blousons with high necks, with short silk bloomers over thigh boots. Badass buccaneer style throughout. And on the floor were Chitose’s latest linkup with J.M. Weston, with two new looks – Golf Derbies and Worker Boots. Mounted on a shoe sole specially developed for the occasion by the Limoges workshop team, both caught Abe’s unpredictably cool signature touch.
Just like the clothes, the music was a massive mashup of heavy rock, serial music, weird horror movie worthy smudges and smears of sound and a final rallying anthem, ‘Tonight, Tonight’ by The Smashing Pumpkins.
“I always feel I have to explore new ideas. And new silhouette, which is why I call this all Uniforms,” she added, almost giddy with excitement.
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