Chitose Abe

Two Of A Kind: Asymmetric Pleated Skirts

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Is Dior flattering Sacai?

Battle of the skirts: (left) Dior autumn/winter 2022; photo: Dior and (right) Sacai Resort 2021; photo: Sacai

Women do admire each other when it comes to creativity. In fashion, that admiration could be in the form of adopting a sartorial version associated with someone else. To the one emulated, such a move might be considered blandishment that validates a certain style. Or simple approval. But what if it happens in design? Dior and Sacai are not only brands from opposite sides of the globe, they do not have a shared history, are not of the same age, or under the same holding conglomerate. Respectively, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Chitose Abe are vastly different designers. Their outputs and aesthetics are rather poles apart, yet there seems to be, at least in one Dior skirt style of the next season, a striking similarity to Sacai’s. Coincidence? Homage? Adulation? Or were we imagining the resemblance?

Dior showed a dozen or so asymmetric, pleated skirts for autumn/winter 2022. Sacai has for almost their entire existence, so much so that whichever side the pleated part appears on the skirt, the sum is now considered a ‘signature’. And so identifiable, and associable to the Japanese label that when it pairs with Nike, a pleated fraction of fabric is used in the skirts (and tops) in the different collabs. This uneven balance has so taken the world that the influence has reached even brands with a considerably lower price point. But there is rarely a doubt as to where the pleated detail might come from.

It must say something when we immediately thought of Sacai upon sighting the first Dior skirt (look 15). And then more emerged, in varying lengths; some in print, some not. Another striking detail: the longer, pleated side appears on the left of the skirt, in versions above and below the knee. Why did this placement stick out or say a very specific name to us? For as long as we can remember and have admired, Sacai’s pleating of one part (or added section) of the skirt has mostly swung on the same side as the hand that secures the wedding ring. Dior’s skirts were more than a tad uncanny. But were they really flattering? Or, as they were to us, disconcerting?

The Sacai-ing Of The Swoosh

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One of the most successful sportswear pairings returns, and now with clothing for men

Is Sacai the most popular Japanese label right now? And the most trending? From constantly being in the fashion news cycle, it’s already a resounding yes. But the label’s success is not only from the free publicity it gets. It’s also in the merchandise they can sell. And they sure can, especially with their collaborations. Just look at the last sellout: the once-old-school Nike sneaker, the Blazer Low, released on 10 June, and all snapped up within 30 minutes at Nike’s website. Or, the LDVaporWaffle, conceived for Jean Paul Gaultier, released just before the couture show last month—they’re similarly out of stock within minutes. The micro-site set up for the special commemorative merchandise is now marked by “sold out” throughout. In fact, Nike’s collaboration with Sacai generally enjoys close-to-100% sell-through and is considered as desirable as the sportswear giant’s with other Japanese brands such as Comme des Garçons, Junya Watanabe, and Undercover.

And now, Sacai is launching its largest capsule with Nike to date, including, for the first time, apparel specifically for men. Released in Japan and globally yesterday, the collection will be available here at DSMS from tomorrow. Expect a fiercely enthusiastic turnout even when many would not be there to witness Sacai expressing “the value of connecting everything in sports as imagination, potential, and vitality… a mixture of all the elements of sport, such as creativity and overflowing fun”, so stated in their media release. It is doubtful anyone would don a S$379 hoodie to Kallang Tennis Centre or True Fitness, but they might be enticed by seriously stylish clothing that they could wear when bringing a date to the cinema. The eye-popping Nike X Sacai LDV Waffle needs a companion top. As we have come to expect of Sacai, her wearable pieces of cropped tops, hoodies, jackets, skirts, pants, and leggings will bear the Japanese label’s love of unexpected details: inserts, uneven hems, paneling, and even the utility pocket (usually associated with a flight jacket) on the sleeve—Windrunner-meets-MA-1!

The latest Nike X Sacai Blazer Low: sold out

The American sports brand (now drawing attention at the Olympics, especially with their striking masks), under its Nikelab imprint, and the Japanese fashion burando came together back in 2015 when they released the surprisingly small, eight-piece womenswear capsule that truly surprised and delighted the fashion world in equal measure. This was a collaboration as much as it was a collision. Until then, it was rare to see athletic apparel for women that ultra-feminine. We are referring to the voluminous, flared silhouette, with unapologetically femme details, such as pleats (even plissé) and lace trims. Designer Chitose Abe referenced Nike’s past designs for running, tennis, even American football, but the result looked nothing like what Nike had until then produced. It was like a total remake of the Swoosh aesthetic. And it worked: the collection sold out.

Cut to 2019: Ms Abe took two distinctive Nike silhouettes, the LDV Waffle and the Daybreak, and somehow banged them together to form a new shoe. She did not merely change the fabric or colour of the upper, or add monogrammed panels to the sides; she deconstructed and hybridised. You didn’t think such a shoe could be made. As extreme as the resultant kicks looked then, they were acceptable—more importantly covetable. In that time, the LDV Waffle Daybreak was considered by both journalists and sneakerheads as sneaker of the year. Sacai suddenly became a brand with performance-wear cred—the one to watch. And now with a full clothing line, is an equivalent of Gyakusou in the pipeline for both brands? In Olympics parlance, since we’re just half-way through Tokyo 2020, you always go for gold.

The Sacai X Nike collection is available at Sacai Hilton and DSMS tomorrow. Photos: Sacai X Nike

When Fashion And Functionality Are Friends

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Sacai sticks to what they do best

It is surprising that Sacai’s Chitose Abe didn’t stick around in Paris after presenting the Jean Paul Gaultier couture collection three weeks ago. You’d think that since she was already there, she’d show her menswear after that. After all, Sacai has been showing in Paris since 2011 (except during these pandemic times). Instead, she returned to Tokyo and issued a set of photographs for the brands men’s spring/summer 2022 collection (and the women’s resort) that was shot in Paris—possibly before she left—at the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe on the Left Bank and its surroundings. Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe is one of the six national theatres of France, and the present building (1819) is the third iteration. The original building was inaugurated by none other than Marie Antoinette. It was here that Beaumarchais’s Le Mariage de Figaro debuted some two years later. Despite the building’s historicity, the photos projected an unmistakable street vibe. Ms Abe isn’t, perhaps, ready for an IRL show or maybe doing couture took its toll. Despite the heady schedule (there was also last month’s Dior men’s capsule designed in Tokyo and the KAWS collab, just to name two), she did produce the men’s collection, albeit showing it off-season, or, rather, not during PMFW. This has not reduced the impact that Sacai’s clothes tend to have, alongside her compatriot (and former colleague) Junya Watanabe, on the Paris menswear season.

Sacai has been consistent in that respect. And just as consistent is her weakness for collaborations. Just these past two months, she has paired with close to half-a-dozen names. So it’s no surprise that she is at it again, this time with ACRONYM, the German brand esteemed by streetwear die-hards. For Sacai, functionality isn’t permutations of the sweatpants (although there were those matched with chinos, we vaguely recall). For her, they would have to be existing clothes—or brands—already deeply performance-oriented. It is, therefore, understandable why she finds a connection with ACRONYM, the 27-year-old brand, whose co-founder Errolson Hugh was appointed as creative director of the resurrected Nikelab ACG in 2014 (he left in 2018). Rumours had in fact appeared online before the Sacai spring/summer 2022 reveal that a collab between the German and Japanese brands was in the works. And then there they are—the “cross-pollination”: striking water-repellent techwear for the urban-sphere, featuring utility pockets, bonded seams, and watertight zippers. Military details include one side of velcros (so that you can provide your own name tags?) and both brand’s predilection for unusually placed pockets—this season, slightly off-centre in the front, so that they won’t look too much like a built-in chest rig.

Ms Abe cannot, of course, do away with military looks—the MA jacket, for one (also an ACRONYM fave). The first look (are they still sequenced even with photographs?) is dominated by another version with fresh details: the front of the yoke (curved) brought lower, along which runs zippers (presumably to secure hidden pockets, the distinctive off-centre pouch pocket, as well as additional flaps and pockets and seams for the sleeve. For fans, which are purportedly growing by the legion, such is the thrill of a Sacai garment—there is much to see and appreciate in just one item, and that, in turn, is value for money. You get more parts than a regular MA jacket (or any other outerwear) and the bragging rights to show off a fetching sum that really is greater than its parts. And if those components are not enough, there is the bringing together of disparate garments that Sacai has built its name on, although, unusually, there are fewer of them this season, or, perhaps, just not immediately discernible.

There are pieces that are closer to the sportif, and outers that wouldn’t be out of place at a higher altitude, among rocks and trees. But most of the pieces would really do well within urban environs, such as the 6th arrondissement of the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe. In addition, buffalo checks and paisley bandana prints (pattern on pattern, print on print) would appeal to those for whom even the modest motifs are necessary to make an online impression, as do stronger colours, such as wellies-yellow, vivid turquoise, and a pink so unmissable it can only be called hot. Ms Abe may be partial to these not-typically-masculine colours, but, contrary to what was evident in Paris weeks earlier, she did not show anything that bear a semblance to skirts. Is it possible that, despite pronounced aesthetical shifts, Chitose Abe still prefers her menswear to be unmistakably so?

Photos: Sacai

’Ow Do You Hybridise That?

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Chitose Abe’s take on Jean Paul Gaultier couture for autumn/winter 2021 is all singing and dancing Sacai

It’s certainly a masterclass on “’ow to do dat in a new way”, as Jean Paul Gaultier rapped in the soundtrack of his Michel Gaubert-remixed 1989 “house couture” single, How to do That. In the original track, Mr Gaultier spoke-sang through the song and answered his own question: “Bring some technic… idea…” (which spun into another song Technic Idea, with the catchy refrain “How to do that”!). And techniques and ideas were certainly what Sacai’s Chisato Abe brought to JPG in her debut collection for the French house—indeed, her first attempt at haute couture. Fans of JPG were thrilled that the brand could be fashioned in such and haute and outre manner. All JPG’s favorite visual themes (or ‘codes’) were there, but turned upside down, inside out. This is the Frankenstein love child of Sacai and Jean Paul Gaultier that you could adore—born immaculately— since this is not Sacai X JPG (or vice versa). This is JPG by Sacai. And what jumped out at us are Sacai hacking JPG; this is less homage than let’s put Sacai on the JPG stage.

To be sure, it is a momentous take on JPG by Chisato Abe, and a testament to her astounding technical ability to bring together different parts, indeed different garments, together by stitching that could possibly be beyond even JPG’s most advanced metier (how do you join so many shoulders-looking parts to a waist to form a skirt?). But Ms Abe cannot divorce herself from her RTW roots. While Sacai seems to be paring down the splicing and the conjoining (as seen in the spring/summer 2021 and the recent autumn/winter collections), she is amping up the melding (not necessarily unifying) at JPG, as if to show off what she can do. Must every look be an obvious draughting challenge or a technical marvel? It was also sometimes difficult to see the difference between this couture and her own pret-a-porter. Or, whether the clothes were assembled in Paris or Tokyo (for it to qualify as haute couture, they have to be made in Paris, although “guests designers” can work outside the city. But you get our point). The beauty of having carte blanche to do as one pleases!

Chisato Abe told WWD Japan: “I loved his collections since I was in my twenties, and what I was conscious of was the feeling of happiness and the freedom of breaking preconceived ideas. However, it is not the same as the old Gaultier. I wanted to make clothes that are just like Sacai.” And that she did. Ms Abe is a maximalist designer, but not in the Dolce & Gabbana school, or, closer home, Guo Pei. Encrusting and bejeweling is not her vernacular—not in a major way (when she did decorate—metallic embroidery, no less, she obscured them with profusion of tulle!), yet she could astonishingly create a sum so much more than its unlikely parts or extrusions. We think even Mr Gaultier himself has never assembled this many components in a single garment (excluding embellishments).

She interlaced and intertwined, wed and weaved recognisable JPG codes until they were not quite. An outfit might look like an identifiable bustier corset (less pointy than those Madonna wore, more Cardin than Gaultier) on the top, but if you allowed your eyes to marvel further down, it looked like a trench coat mis-worn. What you see in front is not what you’Il get in the back: a denim trucker-and-skirt-onesie is, in the rear, a jacket and bustle-skirt. No part of a garment cannot be undone and decamped for somewhere else. The shoulder of a military jacket can be repositioned so that there would be a one-sided pannier to the right hip. She used denim jeans (Levi’s upcycled, unlike Balenciaga’s custom-woven in Japan using vintage American looms, more like Maison Margiela’s “found pieces”? Or Junya Watanabe?) not as pants; she joined multiple pairs at the waist so they formed cartridge-pleated skirts. Nothing was what they seemed, even the prosaic could have the guise of historical homage.

She didn’t only pick the JPG pieces Madonna wore to reimagine, but also what Bjork modelled, in particular the jerkin coat with the massive JPG logo for the autumn/winter 1994 Le Grand Voyage collection, one inspired by Tibetan sherpa’s garb that surprisingly has not been tagged cultural appropriation (not in 1994, but presently?). Mr Gaultier famously put men in skirts. Ms Abe put them in dresses. Wasn’t this a first, too, for her? By now, of course, there is nothing subversive about men in non-bifurcated garb, as it was in the mid-’80s. Nor, respectable Breton stripes made of layered, ripped fabric strips, nor sneakers (extending Sacai’s collaboration with Nike) in couture. While there was indeed a lot to take in, we really wanted something more agitational, something that would blow us away. That truly didn’t appear.

Screen grab (top): Jean Paul Gaultier by Sacai. Photos: Gorunway

West Meets East: Dior X Sacai

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Kim Jones shows how much he admires Chitose Abe as Sacai becomes his latest Stussy

Dior is on a collaboration roll. Sacai is on a collaboration roll. It’s really a matter of time when the two brands will find each other. We’re surprised it was not sooner. Dior’s Kim Jones wrote on Instagram that Sacai’s Chitose Abe “has been a friend for about 15 years”. It’s amazing that in this time, Mr Jones has not thought of pairing with Ms Abe. Until the pandemic strikes and he misses “friends and travel”; until he could no longer visit Japan, where he and his team “visited a lot”. “We started a conversation about working together,” he wrote, “and did this collection over a period of lockdown, sending samples and sketches back and forth.” Collaboration has, for a long time, the sense of cooperating in close proximity. Now, that may only be feasible by connecting remotely and digitally. It does make us wonder if the partnership would have yielded a stronger result if they had, in fact, been able to be in each other’s company and allowed the proverbial ideas to bounce off each other.

The images that Dior made available to the media do not really reveal a lot. Sacai’s clothes are always more complex than they appear, but how much of that complexity is absorbed into the Dior aesthetic isn’t immediately discernible. Mr Jones isn’t the kind of designer that Ms Abe is—a brilliant and tenacious technician. He tends to play it straight. Hybridisation is not his forte. Nor, are unusual cuts (Ms Abe was a pattern-maker at Comme des Garçons before starting her own label). Compare Mr Jones’s ‘remake’ of Nike’s Air Jordan 1 for Dior (which is still asking five-figures sums!) to Ms Abe’s Nike Blazer for Sacai (we’ll just stick to basketball shoes). And the difference is clear. One is happy to go with the as-is, while the other is eager to see what are other possibilities, such as ripping apart and redoing. Or, perhaps, the mere pairing of Dior and Sacai is hybridising itself?

With a touch of Sacai, Dior is looking better than ever. The 57-piece capsule still bears the touches of Kim Jones, for sure. The clothes definitely is still amped-up to hit luxury’s high notes—for example, the fabrics are still heavy—but they look less couture-fied, as if Ms Abe had, at her end in Tokyo, relaxed this and that. There is the clearly casual ‘shacket’ (shirt-jacket that is more a Japanese obsession than French), with zipped pockets that might have been plucked from an MA-1 bomber jacket, which Ms Abe often reinterprets or adapts from. In fact, no Sacai anything is complete without it and the MA-1 makes it Dior appearance, slightly longer and with a two-zip fastening. Another Sacai detail is the draw-cord hem on shirts—Dior didn’t omit that. Nor, the Sacai two-layer shirttails that contrast the woven with the knit. Re-looking at the images, what struck us as possibly clever is that Dior fans will see Dior and Sacai followers will be able to suss out Sacai.

And there are the accessories. The Diorness is unmistakable, as in their structured forms. And, of course, the Saddle Bag, but now, not offered in its original (reintroduced) shape. A Prada-ish tote, for example, comes with the signature leather flap of the Saddle. A D-ring attached to one end of the handle allows a water bottle and its nylon/leather sleeve to be attached. The side of the bag also sports lacing that is reminiscent of backpacks that have similarly fastened cords to hold skateboards. These function-first details, often seen in Sacai designs, is very much a Japanese design vernacular and is often seen in the work of Sacai’s compatriot label Kolor (Ms Abe is married to its founder/designer Junichi Abe). But perhaps the most coveted will be anything with the new logo: the Dior text with Sacai stretched out on the ‘i’. And if one, emblazoned across the back of a top, is any indication, Dior is going to have another Stussy in its hands.

Photos: Brett Lloyd/Dior

Sacai Does Soignée

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Is Chisote Abe in a couture state of mind?

It’s five months after the last autumn/winter presentations during menswear fashion week in Paris, and we’re still seeing the season’s collections being shown. It is clearer than ever that fashion weeks as we know (knew?) them don’t matter much anymore. Nor if showing in Paris, traditionally the most important city in which to unveil a collection, really matters, even when the city, as a fashion capital, is still important. In stores, such as our Club 21, pre-sale of the spring/summer collections have already begun. It is, therefore, hard to place Sacai’s latest show, unmistakably broadcast from Tokyo, in the scheme of things and the selling season. Surely, the clothes were available to buyers much earlier? Or is Sacai pursuing some form of see-now-buy-now model?

In fact, designer Chisote Abe’s Parisian haute couture debut is near. In July, she will be showing her debut collection for Jean Paul Gaultier as the latter’s first guest designer to interprete Mr Gaultier couture. This was supposed to take place last year, but as with so many partnerships and events in fashion due to the pandemic, it didn’t happen. But no designer is turning back on their pairing, and Ms Abe will show in Paris in the month after next. It is a much anticipated couture collection, just as Balenciaga’s return to couture under Demna Gvasalia is (also for July). Which makes us wonder if the Sacai autumn/winter season is a foretaste of what Ms Abe might produce for JPG? It is, after all, remarkably elegant, almost to the point of special-occasion dressing.

That the outdoor show suggested nightfall (in Tokyo) rather than the time-non-specific of a staging in a neutral interior space seemed to say that the clothes are indeed for when dressing up under dim lights or atmosphere that suggests glamour is possible again. And that the models emerged from a Sacai private helicopter heightened the specialness of the occasion. These outfits are not just for a date at the deli; these would not be out of place at the opera. In fact, some could easily fit and stand out on a red carpet. Ms Abe has always been in touch with the part in her that loves a pretty and dazzling and enchanting dress, but she had always tempered those ultra-femme styles with elements that were off-kilter and definitely military. Her approach is known as ‘hybridising’, or bringing different—often opposing—ideas together, not just seen in those two-in-ones, but also the many-in-ones. She has made this so much her aesthetical signature that in recent years, she seemed to be coasting. Even ardent fans are saying she has become somewhat predictable.

The latest looks, while identifiably Sacai, have a certain beguiling glamour about them, and seemed conceived for women than girls, for keeping than trending. The military-inspired outwear is not surprising, but what is delightful are those dresses with their strength in the way they flow and flatter (the body), not how strangely they distend or tent out. It is the overall sleekness that makes every ensemble eye-catching. Pity the models did not remove the coats to reveal the dresses underneath. Just as it was regrettable that the show was filmed on a set that mimicked Tokyo’s famed Shibuya Crossing, rather than the pedestrian intersection itself. But perhaps this is indication that Sacai is now able to play alongside the big league. The last time a fashion label was able to have their own-branded aircraft, it was Chanel.

Photos: Sacai

They Stick Out, Don’t They?

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More and more, heels now come as shelves

 

TheSoloistXConverse vs SacaiXNikeProduct shots: (left) Converse and (right) Nike

By Ray Zhang

Two sneakers are launched this week, and both share a common feature: the heel sticks out. Or, to be more precise, the upper half of the rear mid-sole protrudes. Like a shelf. Or, like the mountain ledge of Trolltunga in Norway. Okay, I’m off track. Running shoe lingo has it as “flared heels”. I don’t know about you, but when heels jut out like that, they don’t increase the shoe’s appeal. Yet, this seems to be the trend. Maybe it’s rather like jacket trends: shoulders stretch to there. Anyway, succumbing to my limited knowledge, I checked with my friends who run and an instructor at my gym, and they say these stick-out points may delight the fashionista, but they do nothing for the athlete. That’s what I thought.

The two kicks with similar heels are the Converse X TakahiromiyashitaTheSoloist All Star Disrupt CX (yes, a mouthful) and the highly anticipated Nike X Sacai LDV Waffle, which, you would have guessed, is sold out as soon as it’s launched, which is today (my fellow SOTD contributor Shu Xie tried scoring a pair for more than 2 hours since midnight, but came up nought). Other similarities, I should, perhaps, add: both are by Japanese brands collaborating with shoes from the same American company: Nike. Could that explain the similarities in heel detail?

20-03-11-15-40-40-263_decoLeft: Converse X TakahiromiyashitaTheSoloist All Star Disrupt CX. Right: Nike X Sacai LDV Waffle. Product photos: Converse and Nike respectively

Between the two, I choose the TakahiromiyashitaTheSoloist’s take on the Converse, if only because the said protrusion is shallower in depth. The Sacai remake of LDV Waffle scores less because it is basically a reissue of the “reconstruction”—hybrid, actually—of the Nike classics LDV and Waffle Racer, now with nylon uppers. Both the All Star Disrupt CX and the LDV waffle are, in terms of silhouette, fetching, but since the Sacai became the most hyped and desired and, as a consequence, the most jelak shoe of last year, another release doesn’t send my pulse racing. And not that back corridor. Despite its peplum rear, the All Star Disrupt CX looks sleek, with the clever declaration “I am the Soloist. Since 2010” on the lateral and “Hello! I am the Soloist. Since 2010” on the medial. Admittedly, I have a weakness for text.

The big-welcome-to-MRT-commuters-to-step-on-your-heel sneaker is, to be sure, not a new trend. If I remember correctly (nowadays, there are, of course, other more important things to remember, such as regularly wash your hands and do not touch any part of your face!), Rick Owens was the earliest to introduce them protrusions in his collaboration with Adidas. At first, it was the Runner, introduced way back in the spring of 2014. The shoe with the split mid-sole has a rear that looks like a pebble is affixed to trip the person who walks too closely to you. And then later that year, the Tech Runner, with a mid-sole that’s a catamaran. Was it not asking other shod feet to come onboard?

Adidas X Rick Owebs Tech Runner 2014Adidas X Rick Owens Tech Runner. Photo: Adidas

Truth be told, I have never tried any of the Adidas X Rick Owens Runners or the Nike X Sacai LDV Waffle. But I have worn kicks with kindred soles. Okay, not as prominent as those two out now. I once took the Nike React Infinity Run for a stroll in a mall, and even when the amble required no heel striking (unlike when you run), I could feel something back there. As I got off the MRT train on my way home, a corpulent woman stepped on the left heel and as I moved forward, the shoe came off. It all happened in a split second. When I turned back to look, another dozen passengers had stepped on that footless sneak, isolated on the station platform.

I thought my feet would be less of an obstacle if I wore the Nike Vapor Street Peg SP, with less of a flared heel (but flares, no less). Again, the rear attracted those who like to pull up to the bumper. Toe box on mid-sole: could that be some kind of Tinder pick up line? Fed up, I finally put the Nike X A Cold Wall Zoom Vomero 5 to the test. Now with this pair, it was not so much a protruding mid-sole that was the problem. What the shoe came with was an AirPod case for the heel counter! Walking down a staircase was hard because I kept scraping against what was the front side of the steps. When I made it to the concrete pavement, I felt a smack: someone had kicked my heaving heel!

Converse x TAKAHIROMIYASHITATheSoloist All Star Disrupt CX, SGD200, is available from 12 March at Club 21 and DSMS. Nike X Sacai LDV Waffle, SGD239, was available at DSMS, and sold out

Dress Watch: A Sweater Top

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The Sacai X John Smedley collaboration ticks all the right boxes for easy-to-wear

Sacai X John Smedley sweater

Fine and delicate is this sweater, not the rugged, almost fishermen-styles of those aligned with the trending homespun, craft-centric looks favoured by some designers. Sacai’s take on a classic turtleneck sweater, conceived in partnership with the revered knitwear firm of John Smedley is a study in modesty that’s tilted towards the Gibson Girl than Audrey Hepburn: it can’t get more feminine than this.

And perhaps that is key. Also known as the polo neck (as polo players wear them almost like uniforms), this sweater risks being just a garment Steve Jobs (and his female followers) used to wear (as uniform!) if not for the sheer panel on the bodice and the equally filmy sleeves. Sure, it’s a little restrained for a Sacai garment considering how designer Chitose Abe loves all manner of insets and add-ons afixed to what would otherwise have been fairly basic garments. Case in point: her latest collab with Nike, featuring separates that look like amalgamations of more than two items.

That the sweater is produced by John Smedley may add to its appeal. There is, after all, a predilection for brands to work with heritage knitwear manufacturers. Touted as the “oldest knitwear factory in the world” (into its 235th year!), John Smedley is one of those British labels with a deep sense of the past that especially appeals to hip brands—even those not aesthetically heritage-leaning, such as Ms Abe’s former employer Comme des Garçons and colleague Junya Watanabe. Typical of how Japanese designers approach classic designs, Chitose Abe has allowed the turtleneck sweater’s silhouette to be recognisable, but within that, tweaks that allow for distinction that may stand the test of time. It was once called mileage. Sacai shows us we could use some of that.

Sacai X John Smedley sweater, SGD900, is available at DSMS. Photo: DSM/Sacai

At Sacai, Tweed Goes Sporty

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Sacai AW 2017 Pic 1

Some people might think it is inappropriate, even sacrilegious, to employ high-end fabrics in a non-high-end way. You would not take silk gazar, for example, and turn them into casual clothes, even if there’s no rule against such a use, except perhaps aesthetic consideration. For Sacai’s Chitose Abe, there are no such self-imposed limitations. She uses fabrics as artists use paint; she mixes them up. In doing so, she gives some of the oldest cloths new purpose. For autumn/winter 2017, tweed, a traditional Irish/Scottish fabric in use before the 19th century, for example, in her hands were fashioned into outers so type-breaking they made Chanel jackets look rather frumpy.

Sacai is known for her aesthetic hybrids, and the results often defy characterisation. For her recent show, she crossbred high-brow tweed with outdoor wear and the result is deliciousness only skilled mixologists can offer. How does one describe her not-country-club tweeds? It’s tricky, but we’ll try. One of them that we really like is a navy and green parka-meets-anorak, within which bouclé tweed was worked into (top). Not quite what you might pick for a climb in the mountains, but it’s certainly for tranquil days tending to your resort in the Swiss Alps.

Sacai AW 2017 Pic 2Sacai AW 2017 Pic 3

And would you add openings to tweed skirts the way they create slits in the knees of jeans? Ms Abe knows women like gashes in their bottoms, and she obliged, but these were not mindless rips, calculated to titillate, or repulse. Instead, they’re side openings with zips, which means the skirts could be customized to fall in a certain way, based on how zipped up they are, or not. The same idea was applied to pants. Yes, those pants! They have the attitude of a pair of cotton cargos and the swagger of the nicest wool crepe slacks. But they are in tweed!

Her cross-breeding does not only bring disparate garments from different categories of clothing together, which she frequently does, but also within a dress type or style. Take military wear, for (another) example. Ms Abe is fond of the field jacket, but this time, she’s created something that looks like the navy and the armed forces happily co-exist: a peacoat married to a parka!

Sacai AW 2017 Pic 4Sacai AW 2017 Pic 5

From the start of the Sacai show, we saw designs that took into consideration the femininity women will always return to despite the vagaries of fashion or the gender-ambiguous leanings of street style. Case in point: the first look should really have been pyjama dressing except that the composition—cut, fabric, and embellishment—looked destined for a front-row seat of a fashion show than under a comforter in a bedroom, or, for the more adventurous, a bar-side stool in a pub. If Grace Coddington was really bent on wearing pyjamas to the Met Gala of 2015 (China: Through the Looking Glass), she really should have picked something like this.

What we find so inspiring is that Ms Abe is able to project a vestige of cool without sacrificing the advantage of craft, beauty, humour, intelligence, and modesty. Her clothes are not overt in any of those qualities that make the wearer ooze sex or trickle foolishness. Despite the possibly frenetic mixing within just one garment, each piece is a charming confluence of clever design and palatable novelty.

At one time, there were rumours that Chitose Abe was asked to go to Dior. If only it were true.

Photos: indigital.tv

Sacai: The Waves Get Bigger

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Not many women designers from Japan get to take the world by storm. Rei Kawakubo did in the early ’80s after facing initial ridicule and derision. The setbacks, if it they can be so called, however, lead the way to the upcoming exhibition dedicated to her at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in May next year. Ms Kawakubo would be the only second living designer in the Costume Department’s history to be given the honour, after Yves Saint Laurent in 1983, following the debut of Comme des Garçons (CDG) in Paris two years earlier. Chisato Abe, the designer behind the label Sacai (actually her maiden name), did not have it quite as hard and daunting mainly because she came into her own in what may be considered the post-Japanese era.

Sacai is no CDG, but Chisato Abe is not an isolated designer working in an obscure corner of Tokyo, selling her wares in a small shop in the hipster neighbourhood of Kamimeguro. In fact, the Sacai flagship, opened in 2011, is in the swanky Minami-Aoyama district where edgier Japanese designers tend to concentrate. The red-bricked building, although situated in an area where Prada, Costume National, the Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco, and the two-level shopping complex Glassarea are neighbours, looks like an unlikely spot to house Sacai’s eye-catching designs—you’d expect to find a convenience store here. But it is here, far from the maddening crowd that is the nearby Harajuku that fans get an appreciative peek into the world of Sacai.

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Ms Abe cut her teeth at Comme des Garçons before assisting Junya Watanabe (also under the umbrella of CDG designers) for 8 years, both experiences the ideal springboard to her own line. Sacai was established in 1991, after the birth of her first child (interestingly, Ms Abe is married to another-Japanese-label-to-watch Kolor’s Junichi Abe). Despite her design pedigree (she’s also know to be a talented pattern cutter), she does not create what she described to the media as “typical Japanese design”. She said that what she does is “more international”.

And it is on the international stage that Sacai has won accolades and the loyalty of many a fashion editor. The label debuted in Paris Fashion Week in 2012 with the kind of response her former employer received only after the world realised they were witnessing history in the making. Ms Abe has said that she learnt well at CDG and that Ms Kawakubo herself has told her “to be your own designer and create what you want.” And she did just that, producing striking clothes that, unlike some of her fellow CDG alumni, do not even hint at a Rei Kawakubo hand guiding the designs.

chitose-abe-x-nikeChitose Abe with model in Nikelab X Sacai (2015), shot by Craig McDean. Photo: Nikelab

So confidently executed was her work, so sure her voice and so ardent her audience that in no time, she was collaborating with multi-billion-dollar brands, such as Nike last year, in her first sportswear collaboration. The Nikelab project showed that Ms Abe was ready to take on new challenges. Those pieces, based on classic Nike men’s track wear, turned performance-enhancing athletic apparel into visually stunning Sacai clothes that women were buying not for jogging in a city park (where you would need good-looking clothes rather than regular gym togs), but dancing at the chicest downtown clubs.

That she would chose to pair with Nike was not surprising as her former boss, Junya Watanabe, is a Nike fan and serial collaborator, and his taste could have rubbed off (her husband’s Kolor, interestingly, paired with Nike’s greatest competitor Adidas!). What makes her take on Nike exceptional is her willingness to incorporate her sense of quirky femininity into sports clothes that, by definition and function, have to be frills-free. Yet her tops and jackets have pleated and swing backs that open up like a ballerina’s tutu when in sporting motion.

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Sacai’s appeal is, perhaps, best encapsulated in those unexpected backs. Her clothes, in fact, do not have fronts and backs that correspond to conventional fronts and backs. She designs by looking at every side of the garment, improving and surprising where you do not think improvement and surprise need exist. She likes bringing contrasting elements together and often pairs military and utilitarian details with totally feminine components such as floral silk chiffon fabrics, proving that masculine touches can enhance femininity, rather than overt, skin-baring sexiness. For all her avant-garde tendencies, Sacai looks decidedly approachable; the clothes do look like clothes, wearable to boot.

Ms Abe may claim that Sacai is not “typical Japanese design”, but the brand is Japanese at heart, and the creative output can only come out of Japan. After that first wave of Japanese designers in the early ’80s, many observers think subsequent Japanese designers are not capturing the world’s attention like they used to. Their distinctive aesthetic, after 35 years, is perhaps no longer as particular or idiosyncratic. It’s not even sub-cultural, now that it has crossed so many borders, and aped by so many designers of the West. In addition, neighbouring Korea is attracting awareness with their kooky streetwear. But Japan, ever the relentless re-inventor, is still quietly challenging the standard issue. Sacai is leading the pack, cut by cut, fold by fold.

Sacai’s Autumn/Winter 2016 collection (pictured) is available at Club 21 and Club 21 Men. Catwalk photos: Sacai