With his expansive Undercover Fall/Winter 2021 collection, showed on the runway at Tokyo Fashion Week, Jun Takahashi continued his brand’s long-running history of pop culture references.
After Akira Kurosawa’s ‘’Throne of Blood’’, Stanley Kubrick’s ‘’A Clockwork Orange’’ and Public Enemy, the Japanese brand is now joining up with ultra-popular anime franchise ‘’Evangelion’’, serving up a variety of thematic apparel indebted to the heady, psychological mecha series.
Takashi titled his Fall/Winter 2021 collection ‘’Creep Very’’, in reference to Radiohead’s popular 1993 song ‘’Creep’’. But beyond soundtracking the show, the song’s reach could also be felt in the broader theme of the collection which saw brooding models trudge down the sparsely lit runway in socks and pajamas.
‘’The theme is of a person who is frail and weak but has a truly pure heart’’, Takahashi told Vogue. ‘’I was expressing the worries and anxieties that individuals carry every day and the hope of what lies ahead. It probably doesn’t seem to directly link to clothing design, but I wanted to put the complicated emotional state of society into a physical form. This is what I considered while designing’’.
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Fans of ‘’Evangelion’’ will find plenty of recognizable designs on display here, ranging from parkas inspired by the giant Evangelion Units and the Plugsuits worn by pilots like Shinji Ikari, Asuka Shikinami Langley and Rei Ayanami. Paneled puffer jackets brought the robotic creations to life, while several black parkas, coats, bombers and jackets featured colorful prints of the characters and their robotic counterparts.
The Evangelion segment was sandwiched between somnambulant models in cardigan-pajama hybrids and a full women’s ready-to-wear collection. The more straightforward womenswear came with tender and gentle expressions. Encompassing tender details like ruffled ribbon bows, romantic cuffs, warm shearling, beautiful shredded trouser suits, and crystal tears trickling down the models’ faces. From borderline couture to comparatively casual items, the womenswear segment took a dark turn into the twisted world of artist Markus Akesson, whose paintings inspired some head-to-toe prints.