Setchu debuts with Tokyo on the Arno

The very indie house of Setchu made its runway debut at Pitti on Thursday, even as its founder Satoshi Kuwata stressed this “Tokyo on the Arno” ​collection would be his first and last catwalk show.

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A very clever blend of Japan-born Satoshi’s disparate influences – where kimonos met Savile Row and Japanese iconography rubbed up against European demi-mondaine – this was a hyper thought-provoking collection, sure to be one of the season’s best fashion statements.

Presented inside the National Library of Florence, on the banks of the Arno – weirdly almost devoid of actual books – this quirkily timeless collection opened with daintily distorted English aristocratic chic. 

A noble yet offbeat couple in almost matching fine wool frocks and deep grey tartan pants and skirt. Totally summing up Satoshi’s dialectical oeuvre. 
 
Trained by Huntsman and Davies & Sons, the latter is oldest tailors on Savile Row, Satoshi is an excellent pattern cutter – a skill few of his contemporaries will ever achieve. He allies this skill with an intriguing Japanese obsession with folds. In a pre-show presentation, he even folded up a blazer into a smart cardboard box, something a Westerner would only do with a shirt. He also injects creases into most looks, an idea culled from his home country.
 
“Usually, you don’t want a crease on a garment, but in a kimono the beauty is in the crease on the shoulder,” explained Satoshi.
 
One had to love his gentlemanly blazers – again worn by a gal and guy – with built in creases, or a brilliant trilogy of creased classic blue gents’ shirts. One cut into a halter neck party frock was totally sexy and cool. And worn by a model, styled with a black cut-out mini fish over her mouth.
 
Like many Asia designers, Satoshi loves going fishing. Yohji Yamamoto fishes all over the Pacific; John Rocha loves to fish in Alaska or the Bering Sea; Kuwata casts for snapper off Japan. 

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Expressing his desire to try out new territory – like his jumbled up pale gray jersey deconstructed sweatshirts and track pants; Kimono peacoat assemblages; palest gray denim made of denim and paper or his posh military leather peacoats, finished with chunky lace.
 
Suddenly changing gears with some fantasy multicolor Mongolian lamb coats; and a Tale of Genji jacquard silk jacket with a print of an aroused octopus embracing a geisha. The print and the image that inspired it part of an extended installation revealed upstairs after the show that included shoe lasts; collar details; carefully folded jackets in brown boxes; hyper precise fashion sketches and 16th-century drawings of the solar system.
 
“Our approach is not fashion. We try to create a culture,” insisted Satoshi, the 2023 LVMH Prize winner.
 
In short, Milan-based Setchu is now one of the most original brands in fashion. Cerebral, cunning, artily classy, clever and commercial. Just ask Hirofumi Kurino, Asia’s most influential menswear buyer, who buys the Setchu total look for his key United Arrows flagships in Tokyo.
 
The East-meets-west moment continuing at a post-show dinner, in a charmingly revamped farmhouse in the hills above Florence, where Japanese dishes like shrimp meatballs with fungi porcini were followed with Tuscan tagliata with yuzu sauce.
 
Tokyo on the Arno, indeed.