Was the “Happy” sweatshirt and big Arby’s energy ranger hat an homage to 2014-Grammys Pharrell Williams? Was the reincarnation of Jun Takahashi’s embroidered fall 2015 vintage Dracula hand meant to signal a knowing degree of bloodsucking from Undercover collections past? (Certainly this season’s paradigm duffel, in cream, looked adjacent to that season’s gorgeous green equivalent).
a conversation these questions were unanswerable, but what the house did offer is that the graphics—the diving board, the stars, the geometrics—were drawn from 1970s German space rock pioneers Cluster. As in Takahashi’s memorable Marquee Moon inspired collection, the designer used that band’s catalog for visual mood music as he zipped back and forth to mix worn counter cultural relics—brothel creepers here, berets there—into a time-defying mix. Pollock-splash embroideries and a brown jacket seemingly saturated with graphics of Undercover collections past hinted at an abstract approach to self-reference as Takahashi ranged across generation defining silhouettes from the 1950s until now.
An aran knit overcoat and double-zipped argyle jacket were both next level grandad-core. Two tailored looks, both crumpled, cut in a boxy, mid-’90s creative shape, were oddly anomalous and probably references to something specific. The leopard print knits were carryovers from womenswear pre-, and there was also dialogue between the trompe-l’oeil jackets in that collection and the knit-insert jackets in this one—you could see they were developed in tandem. Both would have benefited from live performance, but at least we have Takahashi’s womenswear mainline to look forward to in Paris soon enough.
