Anrealage (Q2681)
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Anrealage is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Anrealage |
Anrealage is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
It was impossible not to notice that under the black nylon Anrealage-branded jacket he was wearing backstage before this show, Kunihiko Morinaga had gained some major bulk. His torso had the unlikely volume of some old-school circus strongman. The secret to the designer’s transformation sat just above the hem of his jacket: a one- or two-inch diameter fan that drew in air and gently inflated the garment.As Morinaga explained, “air-con clothing” has been a thing in Japan for several years. After much trial and error it was invented and perfected by former Sony engineer Hiroshi Ichigaya (check the entertaining profile onnippon.com) as a new form of cooling workwear. The idea is that the constantly refreshed aura of air encircling the body allows for the speedy evaporation of sweat and the maintenance of a bearable temperature. Enthusiastic clients from the construction sector and other hard-working, weather-exposed industries have enabled Ichigaya’s 2004-founded company Kuchofuku to expand almost as rapidly as its garments when they inflate: The category it pioneered is now worth more than $140 million a year in sales.Which brings us back to Anrealage. Morinaga’s first three models came out in loose, drapey and opaque romper suits in white, pink and blue. When the fans (which can be controlled via app) were started the ultralight nylon garments inflated—and the audience was rightly wowed. Applause still rang as further sections followed. Prints showed the graphic elements of polka-dot, check and houndstooth as if they’d been windblown like autumn leaves. These had been printed with a water-free process named Forearth invented by another Morinaga collaborator, Kyocera. We saw a section of amusingly steroid-enormous track-jackets before Morinaga really found his own creative wind by applying an artistic agenda to Ichigaya’s pragmatic invention.Morinaga used the inflationary pressure of the Ichigaya process to create shapes that were semi-abstract, but also evocative of insects, flowers, birds and coral. Fabrics included what looked like a tweed, but mostly stuck to the parachute lightness of nylon. Powerfully unfamiliar, these would be a challenging wear in a banal and daily context for anybody who wilts under scrutiny. Yet accompanied by Jakops’s specially-composed, urgently uplifting soundtrack it was easy to see these Anrealage pieces absolutely in their element on some loopily enhanced midsummer’s dancefloor.
The shapes Morinaga was throwing were fun and fascinating. And in the sweltering closeness of the Palais de Tokyo basement space we were watching them in, the appeal “air-con clothing” technology was obvious.
24 September 2024
What a shame. As the small-font list of names on the credit sheet attested, a lot of people worked hard to get this afternoon’s planned Anrealage show ready to go. But in a twist that could almost have been scripted (by an especially sadistic writer), the always futuristic plans of Kunihiko Morinaga were today undone by a technological glitch.By the time we filed in past the Standing sign, the show had been downgraded to a presentation. A line of models wore outfits in zestfully patterned fabrics, alongside “floating” objects similarly clad. These were hanging by fine clear wire from a tracked rig in the ceiling. Morinaga explained through his translator over loud music (tricky), that he’d been inspired by 1970s manga cartoonDoraemonto create outfits both for his models and for imagined objects that were sort of personal drones and real world avatars rolled into one. He talked about how in the future the consideration of dressing such objects might be just as relevant as dressing people. There was a Reebok collaboration that involved some refashioned Instapump sneakers and a sneak peak at the work Morinaga has been cooking up as artistic director of a line by Italian outerwear brand Herno.Looking at that roof rig you understood that the models were probably supposed to have been followed by their matchy-matchy “objects” as they walked the show. But that show never happened because, it was confirmed later, something-or-other that enabled this illusion to occur failed at the last minute. This was a pity for Morinaga and all those colleagues. The designer was left describing what might have been, instead of showing what might become. And while it was disappointing too for the audience, it was worth considering that Anrealage has created a series of mesmerizingly innovative shows in recent seasons: even the best of us strike out sometimes.
27 February 2024
After last season’s Anrealage collection went viral, Kunihiko Morinaga’s color-changing collection was spectacularly worn by Beyoncé during her Renaissance tour. The light of that global exposure hit Morinaga´s house at precisely the right moment: at the same time, under the name ANVISUAL, he trademarked the technology he has been developing for over a decade to incorporate the photochromic properties into fabrics that enable it to change color when hit by UV.“Now we want to develop this business,” said Morinaga backstage before his show. Evidence of that was the eyewear collaboration, oversized and vintage looking, with X8, which, like most of the accessories in this show, had been given the ANVISUAL treatment. Another collaboration with a significant Italian label will be announced for next year.Last year’s line-up was so striking because UV light was applied to Morinaga’s looks in a quick top-to-bottom burst that changed the garments’ color in an instant—and so intensely that many Instagram commentators were misguidedly concerned that the models were at risk. This presentation saw the light applied more slowly, yet it was still potentially just a little unsettling, as new technologies so often are.The models came out singly or in pairs in double layered looks; all-white Angrealage bodysuits under more voluminous transparent PVC garments in various shapes, some lined with strips of fabric or squares of crochet. Bags, boots and loafers were also made in the house’s new PVC, which Morinaga said was not only photochromatic but phthalate-free and therefore (relatively) environmentally friendly. Once they had been photographed in this all-white and transparent apparel, the models stood on a turntable set into the floor: this rotated, allowing the banks of UV and other lights in the gantry above to illuminate the garments—which of course changed color.What was impressive today was how the formerly transparent PVC immediately acquired the opaque visual solidity of color. You could see this having applications not only in clothing, but in architecture—a flash of UV could make a see-through window instantly “covered” and spell curtains for the curtains industry. The slower application of the light meant you could see the garments and accessories acquiring their colors as they rotated on the turntable like popcorn in a microwave.
There was a fly buzzing around the room in YOYO (a space often used by Rick Owens as backstage), and every time the lights were illuminated it zoomed with gusto towards them, before backing off as they dimmed.The collection teased at a new relationship between the time taken for color to bloom and then fade. Morinaga was interested in using the empty space between his body suits and PVC outer-layer as a kind of visible/invisible cladding—an atmosphere—of worn personal environment. Elsewhere he incorporated more conventionally color-filtered lights to mess with the impact made by the garments on the visible spectrum, prompting the crochet paneled garments to apparently change from one color to another.Morinaga and his fellow Anrealage pioneers have carved a distinct and exciting niche in garment technology: the challenge now is how to export it from the stage or the runway onto the sidewalk. But this was another mesmerizing show of chameleon clothing.
26 September 2023
Kunihiko Morinaga first incorporated fabric with light-dependent color-changing photochromic properties a decade ago and has since regularly returned to the technology, once in collaboration with Fendi. This evening at the Théâtre de la Madeleine, we saw it again, and again it was a pleasure: This is an Anrealage coup de théâtre that never gets old. The latest update featured new photochromic hardware—Morinaga said this was the first time he had integrated the technology into faux fur, velvet, lace, knits, jacquards, and satins and added that he had never before been able to create shifting shades of colors like yellow, red and purple. There was also a new thesis: Morinaga considered the philosophical/biological concept of Umwelt—that our perception of our environment is defined by our capacity to perceive—to make the point that things are not necessarily what they seem to be.Pairs of models came out on stage wearing adjacent but not identical garments that were often cut symmetrically to look the same from the front as behind or to have what you would expect the back to look like in front. Two UV-emitting tubes were lowered in front of the models to the slow build of Ravel’s “Boléro.” As the light passed in front of the garments, their color transformed from (mostly) white into vivid tones and patterns, including an Anrealage monogram and polka dots. The models then turned 180 degrees and were zhuzhed again. According to Morinaga the clothes also react to the UV in sunlight, and the reaction is specific to the particular weather conditions to which they are exposed: There was a deeper environmental point waiting to be exposed by this line of consideration. From shoes to cloche furs, the garments duly transformed: Possibly the most impressive addition to the routing was when a yellow dress was applied with vertical green stripes—it was a freshly revelatory deployment of Morinaga’s magic. The audience applauded almost every metamorphosis.
28 February 2023
If you watched this show via stream, you could be forgiven for confusing its concept with that of a recent notable other. “Like Gucci,” smiled Kunihiko Morinaga in agreement: “But not twins—clones!”Put simply, the first 15 looks that we saw in the live run of show were the same as the last 15 looks, except that the last 15 were worn turned inside out (shoes excepted). Between these two repetitions was a five-look interval of all-black pieces, which—like every other item in this, um, 20-look collection—were constructed from thousands of triangular patches of deadstock fabric drawn from past Anrealage collections. The most complicated look featured just under 4,000 individual pieces of fabric stitched together. The contrast between right way round and inside out was presented more directly online, with the models spliced to walk simultaneously alongside themselves wearing both looks.This was a 20th-anniversary show, so many of these looks were drawn from past Anrealage silhouettes—and very effective they were too. Even with such a complicated form of construction (surely these pieces were computer modeled before construction), the fit, form, and drape were fluid and attractive. The fabrics ran from Liberty-esque ditsy-print cotton to black grosgrain to air-washed denim.Morinaga said that after the last two-ish years of digital shows—including possibly my favorite from the whole desperate period—he’d wanted to present these pieces twice, from both inside out and not, to demonstrate something physical: the written-in stitches showing the level of handcraft demanded to create them.But Morinaga was not going completely analog. Everyone in the audience was issued headphones by Japanese manufacturer NTT Sonority, ear-looped designs whose buds lay on the external concha (above the auditory meatus) to allow the user to hear the outside world and the recorded simultaneously. Through these we listened to a soundtrack that was sometimes broadcast both through them and on the P.A. and sometimes only through them: This was when you could pick up shutter clicks, keyboard taps, and even the odd scrape of pen on notebook.This collection was a clever way to merge Anrealage’s technological-facing tendencies, which were only heightened during the pandemic, with Morinaga’s fundamental craft.
When you looked at sections of the garments closely, it produced the same sense of discombobulation produced by close inspection of an Andreas Gursky photograph: These were huge landscapes of fabric, virtual worlds created by a web of stitched fabric and immense imagination.
27 September 2022
Following last season’s collection built alongside and within Mamoru Hosoda’s soaring anime fantasyBelle, this season Anrealage designer Kunihiko Morinaga made an even greater imaginative leap by taking his collection to the moon. Kind of. This collection was shot and filmed in a moon-simulating Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) lunar training site named the Advanced Facility for Space Exploration. As Morinaga explained, the space agency approached him to collaborate after seeing thatBellecollection (it’s nice to consider that Japanese astronauts might sometimes orbit Vogue Runway).The film began with a close-up of a space boot modeled after NASA’s originals and made in partnership with United Nude lifting slowly down and off the surface to leave a footprint. This was a gentle reference to Neil Armstrong’s first step on the Sea of Tranquillity and, Morinaga stressed in his notes, to the sentiment written upon the plaque he and Buzz Aldrin left there: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.”The collection that followed was referential to space suits both in appearance and substance: the collection incorporated an ultra-light aerogel typically used in space gear that offers insulation properties down to -196 degrees Celsius. This material, which Morinaga said was light enough to use every day and in less grueling temperatures, coated a series of helmet-accessorized looks that were either volumized astronaut-appropriate interpretations of Earthling staples, or his Earthling riff on the space suit itself.Before we got to a second all-white section worn helmetless and all featuring a helmet-friendly wide-neckline there was a series of three amazing black dresses the designer said contained a layered mesh of fiber optic cables. The Anrealage team has developed an app that connects to the garment and allows the wearer—or someone with the wearer’s permission—to pattern, color, or otherwise illustrate the surface of the dresses as they wish: an amazing invention.This collection’s collaboration with JAXA as well as other industrial Japanese big-hitters, including Toyota and Bridgestone, suggests that Morinaga’s technologically driven creative artistry in fashion design is increasingly being paid attention to as a catalyst for wider innovation. This is a big ideas designer who surprises every season.
8 March 2022
Fashion inhabits the relationship between human psychology, the human form, and the fabrics that act as that form’s facade. Because humans inhabit the “real” world, fashion feels fundamentally analogue—because you can’t download a dress, right? And yet increasingly, fashion is migrating with the 5 billion humans who now live partially online to evolve new forms in that “unreal” world.Through analogue research and conceptual ingenuity, Kunihiko Morinaga’s Anrealage—a name that blends the words ‘unreal’, ‘real’, and ‘age’—has long wowed us in Paris with his technologically-driven artistry. For this collection, he stepped forward into a fashion space that was less Charles Frederick Worth than William Gibson to produce one of the most beautiful digital presentations and concepts of the pandemic period.It began near the beginning of that period, when Morinaga was approached by Mamoru Hosoda to design a costume for his latest anime epic,Belle. The film was released in Japan this summer and not only looks awesome but has beenhailedfor its rewriting of the gender stereotypes endemic in its art form. Here, clearly less significantly, it contributed to an upgrading of our understanding of fashion, too.Hosoda collaborated with Morinaga to create this great collection film. It begins with the formation of the clothes as Morinaga designed them, not through cut and drape but via cut and paste, and we see the garments as digital toiles made up of fractal contours true to the representation of futuristic facades stretching back toMetropolisandTron. Then the dresses form more tangibly, but still in 2D, filling those vectored spaces with the angled jigsaw of reclaimed denim, chino cotton, and gabardine, plus reflective material (all seamlessly bonded) from which they are made. It slowly becomes kind of clear that we are seeing a fashion show in U, the virtual world whichBelle’s heroine inhabits—and that it is also being streamed on U’s equivalent of YouTube. There are rooms within rooms within rooms.As Morinaga explained, the collection will also be sold in NFT form via a platform that allows bidders to watch the presentation as U-inhabiting avatars and also to bid cold hard cash (or crypto) for the digital pieces. The final look is a real-world rendering of the digital dress and face mask he created for Belle herself, which appears in the feature film.
“To create animation is something virtual,” said Morinaga of this digital-first collection: “But we can use the data to create it with materials. And we can change the textiles with one click.” Maybe the simple way to explain this process is that the digital sketch comes before the finished dress—like it always has—but that this digital sketch can itself be “worn.” As for the digital sketch being sold, Morinaga added: “It’s true that there’s no physical object in the NFT world. But in this pandemic situation, it’s become also true that something digital can be something real.” Even if fashion NFTs seem counterintuitive for us non-digital natives, there is clearlysomethingin them—and in this collection, Morinaga produced garments that were highly attractive to inhabit in whatever form, and on whatever platform. PlusBellelooks like the perfect reason to go back to the movie theater.
2 October 2021
Although super-frustrating to try and see on a phone until you worked out how to lock its geomagnetic auto-correction orientation, this Anrealage show and collection was also super-fun. As Kunihiko Morinaga said in a gloriously cryptic preshow email exchange: “The sky covers the world. It’s unusual. The ground supports the world. It’s usual.” Asked for clarification, he added: “The digital fashion show brought by this pandemic situation has changed the world…. Everything has become flat. There is no top and bottom in the screen, even gravity and mass have disappeared.”Morinaga’s rebuttal to our 2D digital purgatory was to reimpose the laws of gravity while simultaneously flouting them. His models walked first on the floor and then the ceiling, the looks reflecting their relative “usual” or “unusual” positioning. Worn at 180 degrees, polka dots, checks, houndstooth, a star pattern, floral, and argyle diamonds all tumbled down (or up, if worn foot to floor) toward the shoulder. A funny sweater made a Zoom-age mockery of Sir Isaac Newton’s observation about apples and gravity. It wasn’t only patterns that succumbed to inversion: Pockets and collars on bikers, truckers and trenches, ruffles on dresses, hems on bombers, and even shoelaces were fashioned to appear upside down even when the “right” way up. Another less visible reflection of now’s unusual normal was in the collection’s fabrication. According to Morinaga, about half of it was made using fabric with antiviral properties. He added: “How to see the garments, how to present the garments, how to buy the garments...every method that was unusual has become usual. In this pandemic situation extraordinary things became everyday, and the two opposite worlds became mixed.” This was a collection that turned downside into upside via a simple conceit that was ingeniously executed.
8 March 2021
If Kunihiko Morinaga had staged a physical show in his usual Tuesday timeslot of PFW, we would not have had the opportunity to see his collection play out against the wide-open backdrop of Mt. Fuji. It’s also unlikely that the 18 colorful geometric structures spaced out across the landscape would have fit inside the typical Paris venue. The fabric stretched across these various polyhedrons was just light enough to reveal a model within each. Then, thanks to Morinaga’s talent for transformation, the models were suddenly on the outside in period-style silhouettes created from the structures themselves. Quite simply, they were wearing tent dresses. Only these were complex, 3D-modeled iterations that assumed oversized but not unwieldy volumes. Over Zoom, the designer explained how the collection’s title, “Home” was less about staying indoors than about feeling shielded and safe. “Home can be worn like a garment and a garment can be a home.”To that effect, the parachute-like fabric supposedly has the added value of being antiviral. Morinaga worked with Japanese manufacturer Shikibo Ltd., combining antibacterial copper and polyester fibers with their antiviral treated textile, originally developed to protect against influenza. “I wanted to find a way to connect fashion with medical,” he said.As trench coats, capes, shirt dresses, and gowns accented with ruffles, ruching, and poufs, these looks were clearly a far cry from hospital scrubs. But they were consistent with Morinaga’s perpetual study of construction. “The architecture [of the tent] is very hard and the garment is something soft—these two things are completely different and [I] wanted to find a way to make these things at the same time,” he said, admitting that it was a particularly complex concept. But that didn’t stop him from adding bonus features: The sculptural headpieces were designed by architect Kengo Kuma and can double as lampshades, while the patchwork neon looks glow in the dark.Designers prove over and over again that difficult times birth visionary ideas, and with this collection, Morinaga seemed determined to address the moment in a purposeful and uplifting way. Whether or not we need our dresses to convert into aesthetically-pleasing, self-contained bubbles, this is what innovative fashion is all about.
29 September 2020
Kunihiko Morinaga works through a concept the way high-school students might work through a math or science problem. For each seasonal hypothesis he gives himself, the ensuing experimentation ends up resolved and runway ready. It’s a good thing that precision is among his fortes, but it’s also clear that he thrives on play. With this collection, he played in a very literal way by drawing inspiration from building blocks.In fact, building blocks aren’t all that different than patterns—both consist of combining various shapes into larger forms. Morinaga could have stopped somewhere here, but instead he took his concept further by designing each garment so that it could be disassembled and re-assembled into new shapes. Translation: if you’re so inclined, you get to play too.Consider the first three looks in this lineup, each essentially an enhanced outerwear piece: puffy trench, navy blazer, MA-1 blouson. All those exaggerated seams conceal a system of snaps that allow the entire garment to be deconstructed and then reconstructed into the subsequent three looks. Morinaga then shifted between the original “Basic Blocks” and the “Rebuilt Blocks,” gradually favoring the latter, as you can see from all the material and color-blocking. Aran knit now mixed with patterned velvet, and eco fur mixed with denim. Anrealage graciously provides annotated collection diagrams, so assuming you have the patience to study them, you can actually grasp the extent of Morinaga’s methods.Unsurprisingly, the blocky concept translated into blocky silhouettes; demilune and triangle shapes, for instance, were true to form but would register random for those unaware of the premise. Yet as new permutations emerged, it became clear that Morinaga had actually conceived an entire secondary collection from the original designs. Accordingly, you might be tempted to buy not just the red duffle coat, which was fun and functional, but also the yellow down coat so you could combine the puffed sleeves of one with the body of another. Clever.Morinaga is among the designers shortlisted for the LVMH Prize—a spot he has rightfully earned on the basis of originality, execution and, yes, proof of concept. The only thing missing: some trace of emotion. It might be unfair to ask this of him given that it’s never been part of his schtick. However, if he could somehow build a block combining ingenuity and feeling, he’d stand to win us over.
25 February 2020
Among other innovations, Renaissance painters resolved issues of perspective: natural horizon lines and foreshortening of feet so that they appeared planted on the ground. For frescoes above eye level, as one example, they would distort the figures so anyone looking up would perceive them realistically. Kunihiko Morinaga came at his latest Anrealage collection as an extended exercise in similar trompe l’oeil; the key difference is that he constructed the clothes instead of painting them.To establish this conceit, he first showed the staples of a preppy wardrobe—navy blazer, chino, argyle vest, et cetera—in three different versions as though being viewed from above, from below, and from the side. Volumes narrowed and widened; pants flared and slimmed down; necklines dipped low and crept up; everything shifted and twisted asymmetrically for the lateral versions. The execution becomes more and more impressive upon noticing that smaller details have been distorted accordingly as well, whether the diamond patterning, the foreshortened tie, and even the buttons and buttonholes that morphed from circles to ellipses.Before the show, Morinaga explained that imagining the clothes from different angles was motivated by the same starting point as last season’s experimentation in scale: that so much of fashion today is discovered through two-dimensional screens instead of seeing something three-dimensionally. Bags, sunglasses, and headphones were nearly as flat as cardboard yet consistent with each perspective. Tone-on-tone shoes and socks did not undergo any changes.Here’s the issue: The sleight of hand required to transform 2D into 3D does not fully translate to images that are once again 2D. Without all the explaining above, some pieces—notably, the pants—would be wearable in the real world, but many of the otherwise clever distortions might be perceived as arbitrarily absurd. Still, those who dare to don the extra-roomy, high-angle blazer or any of the torqued dresses can engage any quizzical glances. “Just imagine you’re looking at me from below,” and see where the conversation goes.
24 September 2019
Okay, see Look 1? Now check Look 28. See Look 2? Then jump to 29 . . . . Yep, Looks 1 to 7 feature the same dresses as Looks 28 to 35. And by same dress, read:same dress. Not two dresses in two different colorways—the same exact dress (or shirt ’n’ skirt). So . . . what’s up? What is this crazy alchemy? The answer, said designer Kunihiko Morinaga backstage, is in the fabric: a photochromic material that darkens when exposed to UV light.That first seven-look suite appears muddy purple in the pictures but was black in real life. The reason was Morinaga’s assistants shining UV-light-emitting torches onto the clothes, which transformed them from from transparent to black. Even as those pieces walked their first walk, unexposed to UV, the color was fading. And by the time they came out again for their second round (devilishly confusingly now worn with different shoes) the color had faded completely.During the show it was difficult to take this all in. Most of my bench hadn’t had the privilege of a preshow chat, and were enraptured like the rest of the room by the face chandeliers.In between the two coups de théâtre repetitions we saw some lovely looks that melded crisply treated workwear and militarywear at the top via fabric-strafed intersections, with bottom halves made of technical semiopaque checked nylon. See Looks 17 and 18? About 30 seconds before they were photographed, when the wearers were standing at the back of the room against the white screen, elements of both looks were a sky blue color because they had been freshly UVed.Morinaga said: “Anrealage means unreal, and real—I wanted to show an extreme of opposites in one garment.” This show reminded me of that miraculous chewing gum dreamed up by Willy Wonka (in the first, best movie, with Gene Wilder) that contains the flavors of a three-course dinner—“Tomato soup, I can feel it running down my throat! Roast beef and a baked potato!”—but which ultimately turns Violet violet. It was very clever, but the Oompa Loompa in you wondered what you would do-bi-de-do with the clothes in real life. In a fashion-land context, however, this was another radically different show from Morinaga’s uniquely eye-defying line.
25 September 2018
When light strikes a prism, it is split into a rainbow spectrum of colors. “And the color you see depends on your perspective, as well as where the light source is situated,” observed Kunihiko Morinaga backstage.Entitled Prism, this collection was a typically technically innovative Anrealage show that quietly made a point about the myriad variousness of subjectivity: What you see depends on who you are and where you are—and everyone sees things differently.From this particular subjective perspective, what was seen was groups of models emerging into an equilateral-triangle-shaped space surrounded by banks of spotlights. They emerged in trios and rotated from corner to corner with pauses in the center for photography. When the first trio finished their rotation, the lights came up to show that the gauzy PVC garments they were wearing incorporated prisms that suddenly refracted soft-focus reflections of the wearers within.The ensuing trios of looks included prism-PVC ruffled shirts and dresses in a rainbow triangular check. Papery checks and houndstooths that rustled as the wearers walked on their cool prismatic Onitsuka Tiger x Anrealage high-top sneakers were invisibly covered with a “multi-ocular lens effect” coating that made them appear dotted by internal nano fairy lights when the spotlights came up. And the closing trio—actually, this eye saw a quartet—of garments made in a triangular patchwork of more differently angled prism-integrated fabrics prettily changed color as the lights around them flashed on and off from different directions.Morinaga was not exclusively concerned with innovative prism effects: He went analog too. One trio focused on a triangular patchwork of large-gauge brightly colored traditional knits, while another saw different template garments in white split three ways and then grafted back together—so a jacket was one-third stadium, one-third bomber, one-third liner.That’s just what I saw, though. You’ll see it differently.
27 February 2018
In the Middle Ages, early chemical science was confused for magic and called alchemy, an occult-ish in-between. Toward the end of today’s Anrealage show came some moments of bona fide eye-defying 21st-century alchemy. The five or so strapped white looks—think post-apocalyptic fencing outfits, with webbing—were worn by their models halfway up the runway. When they stopped at a predetermined spot, the lights dimmed almost to dark, and the wearers flexed and stretched against their clothing—a bit like a superhero doing a takeoff or landing pose. When they did, green flashes rippled bright at the areas in the garment they stretched against. There were no LEDs, no CGI, nothing tricksy or sleight of hand.These wearable aurora borealis, explained Kunihiko Morinaga through a translator backstage, were made in a house-developed cloth that employed mechanochromic technology to translate kinetic energy into light. Like those Global Hypercolor T-shirts from back in the day—but much better—these garments would make awesome ravewear.The collection that preceded Morinaga’s otherworldly finale—impossible to capture in runway images, sadly—was an interesting exercise in what the designer said was “an attempt to visualize power.” By power, he meant literal power: force. All the taping was a reference to the kinesiology strips used by athletes to buttress their muscles. A pink V-neck dress featured wide sleeves strapped to bulge as an aping of well-developed biceps. A long white mesh dress/shift featured strapping at the groin to suggest similarly rock-like glutes. As well as electrical power, there was toughness in these clothes. Morinaga used something called Cuben Fiber—apparently light enough to float but stronger than iron, and which I embarrassingly heard as “Cuban” and kept asking the proper name for—which was light and gauze like as the inlay for more meshed looks. To the sound of martial drumming, the strapping on some of these Anrealage looks resembled the boned thorax-like structures of traditional Japanese body armor. There were also three supersize T-shirts blown up in size three times and then—via more strapping—tethered to the body. Whoever is producing the nextAvengersmovie should get Morinaga on the phone—via his translator—ASAP: Dr. Bruce Banner should definitely get into this collection.
26 September 2017
The elephant in the room at the Westin seemed to have been cremated—a five-ish-meter-wide pile of ashy gray fluff with two vague hillocks of ashy gray fluff rising up from it. Two models in solid sculpted gray dresses by artist Kohei Naha stepped carefully out on the parquet barefoot, then into the fluff/ash, then up onto the hillocks. These contained hidden turntables, which slowly rotated them for the rest of the show.As well as Naha’s involvement, the notes revealed that the cremated elephant in the room was absolutely not an elephant, but a pile of unspun denim. Designer Kunihiko Morinaga had been losing himself—à la Dante, Yeats, Möbius, me sometimes, and many more before him—in mind-bending contemplation of time and eternity, as represented by circles and spirals and never-ending twists. This old (but totally compelling) wormhole of a train of thought was rather beautifully extrapolated into a series of worn pieces complemented by spiraling kiss-curls, clear pearlescent beads at the ear and wrist, inlaid heels, and earrings.The first two looks wrapped the wearers in tiers of white silk, while the next few integrated the twists of ribbons into more orthodox dresses. There were some highly interesting, but problematic-to-put-on bomber jackets with incorporated spirals of zipper that arced from the back of the collar, wrapped around and around the body, and ended at the hem. A dress the notes said was carved out of a single block of denim must have been a mighty project to complete, an exercise in precise stripping away. The final dress was just as impressive technically, but an exercise in building up: contour upon contour of gray felt, layered into a dress. This was a compelling show. At the end, there was nothing but a pile of denim-dust imprinted with footprints. And, of course, two hidden turntables.
28 February 2017
Our world is increasingly experienced through screens. We have them in our homes and at our offices, we carry them in our pockets, we stare at them in our hands as we walk down the street. They feed us information, companionship, affirmation, community, and content that is shaped by digital gatekeepers—be they coders, programmers, or the people who created that screen or that content—and the difference between the realities of what we see in real life and what we have screened for us can be breathtaking, provided that we ever come up for air. So few blinked when Kunihiko Morinaga—no stranger to technological trickery, or playing with the concept of perception—delivered show notes explaining that his Spring clothes forAnrealagehad “augmented reality receptors” built in to them and would be seen twice, once on the runway and once through the iPads stationed along the front row. The majority of the world will never see these clothes in person, after all. If you think about it, this is the future.Morinaga’s silhouettes tended toward the ample: flowing caped cocoon shapes and skirts, wide slit-leg trousers, tops with trenchcoat detailing, and boxy shifts with thick black bands binding the biceps to the body. All were black and white, and all would be affected by the AR readers, which showed hidden messages and motifs, or played sounds (created by Ichiro Yamaguchi of Sakanaction) that were inspired by the messaging. (The shifts, which boasted torso-length words like “High,” or “Silence,” simply repeated that word aloud, rather matter-of-factly.) The AR app, called Anrealage_AR3, will be made available to the public for free after October 3. The show notes stated that augmented reality is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, “in which a view of reality is modified (perhaps even diminished, rather than augmented) by a computer.” Admittedly, it didn’t add as much as you wanted here.
27 September 2016
So here’s a question that has maybe never felt more pertinent than on this particular Super Tuesday: What happens to a message delivered on a constant stream of meaningless noise? It doesn’t become any less potent, argues Kunihiko Morinaga, whose latest collection forAnrealageplayed with that very idea. Anrealage is a line that can be reliably counted on to start every Paris season with a sort of magic eye trick devoted to a single concept, and today was no different. Instead of a television screen, models were viewed through a different kind of box: four panels of a delicately ribbed scrim, upon which they occasionally pressed their square-shouldered sheath dresses so that a pattern—floral, grid of houndstooth—might appear. Instead of politically motivated taunts, xenophobic rhetoric, or bluster, a cacophony of static played as the soundtrack (think dial-up Internet, only much louder). It wasn’t particularly easy to take, but then again, neither is this election cycle. Which isn’t to say that Morinaga has even been thinking about the American presidential election (he did not betray as much backstage), but rather it’s interesting that that particular decibel has infiltrated even minds that are (at the moment, at least) more preoccupied with runways than polling numbers.But back to the clothes: Give or take the odd well-crafted cocoon coat or appealing chubby cropped knit, the silhouette was strong-shouldered and boxy, with fabric made of 1,000 pieces of patchwork, digitally printed Ultrasuede, or jacquards “coded” using a technique called visual cryptography, which Morinaga created in collaboration with computer programmer and artist Toru Urakawa. The looks in the finale came with their own viewing screens, buckled-together semi-transparent panels to be strapped on like armor, or aprons, or accents, depending on the angle. The underlying fabric was made of an unassuming grayscale of discreet little black boxes, in turn made by, one assumes, all of those little 0s and 1s—as are, if you think about it, most of our lives and the visuals we create and consume every day. Here they were turned into skirtsuits and trousers, jackets and sheaths. And this is the thing with Anrealage: It can go as deep as you want to take it, or it can stay right on the surface, surfing its very own wave of white noise.
1 March 2016
Upon arrival at theAnrealageshow at the Palais de Tokyo this afternoon, guests were greeted by waiters carrying trays of glasses. In one, there was water, in the other, sake. Both clear liquids, entirely alike in all properties except the important ones. Really, you see, it’s all in how you look at things. Until, of course, it isn’t. Wireless headsets and elaborate instructions had been left on the seats: The Spring collection, one quickly gathered via the pamphlet and the English robotic voice provided by the accompanying recording (thinkBenedict Cumberbatchmeets Siri), was inspired by “reflection,” specifically how it warps reality. The clothes would only be fully visible through an iPhone’s camera app after being photographed with a flash—a very modern take on a mirror, it’s true, but considering the plethora of devices held aloft during Fashion Week, not exactly a stretch. When the clothes appeared and were drowned in a flurry of handheld flashes, what first appeared to be a plain light gray or black-and-white striped dress became a neon houndstooth check; a glen plaid transformed into a tartan, a fancy tweed, a patchwork; pinstripes were lace; white became a kaleidoscope pattern; Mt. Fuji, a quilt. A speckled-looking frilled black frock suddenly boasted the galaxy at warp speed, courtesy of what the show notes described as an “official collaboration with the filmStar Wars” (which, if true, should provide at least one of the upcoming film’s young stars with a seriously viable red carpet ensemble for an upcoming Comic-Con). Often the garments themselves were reversed, inverted, rejiggered: two pieces sewn together at the hemisphere to make a slightly off-kilter asymmetrical form, which came out a lot more appealingly than it sounds, especially in the case of the cropped bomber jackets; rounded sleeve sheaths; and short, A-line shifts. One has come to expect this level of technological trickery from designerKunihiko Morinaga, who has played with the ideas of exposure, light, and shadow before. But here, his fabric innovations—developed in collaboration with a company that specializes in recursive reflective paint, the type used in markers and signs at construction sites—came with a smattering of actually wearable shapes, a combination that promises to move beyond the purely conceptual and into actual closets. (Plus, it must be said: What a good party trick!)
29 September 2015
Kunihiko Morinaga, the creative director of cult Japanese label Anrealage, has a thing for sensations and optical illusions. His debut Paris show last season was about light and shadow. Today, his sophomore outing focused on light and dark. Or, better, on the impressions you get from flashing or projecting light in pitch black.The Anrealage sculptural silhouettes were cut in a special black fabric that revealed a printed texture only under ultraviolet lights, or had needle-punched white circles—like a spotlight projection—splattered across the front. To emphasize the depth of such darkness, everything was black, including models' faces, a heavy stroke that made things a little too dramatic.Morinaga, like some of his fellow Japanese designers, gravitates toward the conceptual, but the important thing about that is knowing when to restrain yourself. With its solemnity and somberness, the Anrealage performance was so hypnotic that it almost felt sleep-inducing. The monotony and stiffness of the pieces did not help, either: Rounded and womanly in a vaguely Belle Epoque kind of way, they were very similar from start to finish.Fabric research, however, was absolutely outstanding: This was the kind of stuff that can really push fashion forward. Yet, the conceptualism seemed to dilute the innovation in a sea of black and heavy shapes. Some lightness, both real and metaphoric, would be good to see in the future.
3 March 2015
There was a lot of anticipation for the Paris debut of Anrealage: Creativity is not particularly high on the fashion agenda at the moment, which makes the arrival of a new Japanese designer in town an exciting prospect. From the stark setup to the almost martial rhythm of the show, as well as the inventiveness and dense experimentation of the clothes, it felt like a genuinely Japanese fashion experience. Anrealage—which, according to the press notes, combines the wordsreal, unreal,andage—is the brainchild of designer Kunihiko Morinaga, who started the project in 2005 after winning the Avant-Garde Grand Prix at Gen Art in New York. He began showing at the Tokyo collections the following year.By his own admission, Morinaga is obsessed with details. He relies on advanced technology to produce labor-intensive creations that come in intricate laser-cut latticework, stiff textures, and state-of-the-art fabrications. There was an odd Belle Époque feel to this collection, twisted and turned this way and that—puffy sleeves, curved cuts, a tight bust, solemn skirts. Asymmetry—another Japanese obsession—was prominent. Almost every piece came with its built-in diagonal shadows in the form of intarsia. An outstanding studded ladylike coat had tiny inlays defining the shadow of every single spike. Hems went askew, and sleeves came in different volumes on the same garment. The showstopping pieces, however, were a series of heat-reactive shifts, the chemical color alteration slowly activated in front of the public while models stood still under glaring spotlights. For a debut, the collection looked accomplished and even surprising, if a tad too reminiscent of the way other Japanese designers already present their work in Paris. Fabric technology was truly outstanding, but also, somehow, disconnected from the design. In the future, it would be interesting to see a closer relation between the two. All in all, though, a wonderful addition to the Paris calendar.
26 September 2014
We're posting runway pictures from Fashion Week Tokyo. See the full list of designers here. To read our daily reports on the collections, visit our Style File blog. And don't miss our street-style coverage.
18 March 2013
We're posting runway pictures from Tokyo fashion week for the first time ever. See the full list of designers here. To read our daily reports on the collections, visit our Style File blog. And don't miss Tommy Ton's street-style shots.
15 October 2012