my paris fashion week experience: part 2 - junya watanabe

early saturday morning, after dealing with a lot of annoying inconveniences converging at one moment, i cabbed out to the 11th arrondissment to see the junya watanabe women’s show. it was held in a modern theatre, set back from the sidewalk by a courtyard. walking in, i couldn’t help but gawk at all the amazing japanese-skewed street style i was seeing. and the added bonus? all the comme des garçons employees were dressed to the nines in all-cdg outfits. heavenly.

downstairs, temporary bleachers were set up in a small blackbox theatre, photographers all piled on top of each other at one end while production staff ran around on the catwalks above my head. as the lights went down, an acoustic guitar came over the speaker system, accompanied by a very rough, but beautiful, voice singing in spanish. a spotlight came up at the end of the runway - there was a woman standing there in a sheer, grey lace, draped dress, with a giant headdress made of black feathers. the entire show continued in this vein, each model’s face obscured by their crowns of crow, turkey, brown, black, white speckled, all sorts of feathers, topping of some of the best floral, patterned, and mixed fabric dresses i’ve seen in a long time.

after a few dress-only looks, a few variations on junya’s infamous rider’s jacket appeared; channeling the floral theme into flared bolero-type jackets, complete with ruffled “sleeves” reminiscent of the flowers printed on previous dresses.

of course, no junya show is complete without some structure and proportion play.

the final look encapsulated the other side of junya’s work perfectly - showing perfect tailoring and restraint, a breathtaking finale.

i have to say this was my favorite show i attended. the music, the clothes, the styling, it all came together in perfect harmony to make a collection that will haunt me for a long time. what’s even nicer is to know the thought that junya put into his collection. after reading the summary on style.com, the collection made sense on a whole other level. and i don’t think that’s something that one gets with most collections, anymore. the attention to keeping it all cohesive, referencing the smallest nuances of his inspiration, adding up to a collection that would be at home in colette or dover street market as it would be on the dancefloor in caracas or buenos aires.