Wednesday, November 24, 2010

JUNYA WATANABE - steals my heart

Most women don't want to wear something that 'hides their waist', 'shortens their legs', or doesn't overtly show off one asset or another. Junya Watanabe is not for them. Watanabe is for a woman whose persona is what she shows off. If there's such a thing as a 'Watanabe woman', it's unbeknownst to her. She's a lady who doesn't care about capital "F" fashion. She sees style as an expression of elegance and fun at the same time.
Watanabe's trademark inventive draping, geometric anomalies, and handle on wildly unconventional proportions fills me with an inexplicable joy. I'm not even kidding. And with a description like that you'd expect something hard, angular, avant, and 'conceptual', right?  But once you get past hair stylist/visionnaire Katsuya Kamo's masks that the models wore in these images from style.com from the SS/11 show, its the whimsical stripes, comfortable fabrics, perfect layering, and flat oxfords that make this collection wearable after all.
So far off the course of 'trend-making', there isn't a single reference in this collection to what young'ins are going nuts for on highstreet but never mind that: all the more reason for me to be inspired to experiment with these looks.  This is what the possibilities of exploring imagination in fashion looks like.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool! Your photo layouts look like Klimpt paintings from far away. Watanabe's designs are so artful and fun!

la fille francaise said...

Thank you for introducing me to Junya's work.

It's more of a mode than it is 'mode', n'est-ce pas? ;)

Unknown said...

great love this look xxxxx

Lexy @ QUIRKY EXPLOSION said...

AH, great review. I'm absolutely in love with this collection. It's very quirky and eclectic, so unlike many other collections, and very much the reason why it is so incredible!

QUIRKYEXPLOSION.blogspot.com

jess said...

wow these pieces are great! lovely blog you've got!

Marcia B. said...

wow very cool, love the out of the box styling!

TANIA said...

Brilliant brilliant brilliant.

One of my absolute favorite designers.

Thank you for your insightful post!

TANIA