Julien David (Q4874)
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Julien David is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Julien David |
Julien David is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Gone were the girls from Julien David’s men’s lineup after two seasons of combined collections. Gone, too, were the guys—at least insofar as being hidden behind latex dog masks. In lieu of a show, the designer held a presentation whereby each of his 20 looks was worn by a different breed. They lounged around a staged apartment—playing vintage video games, drinking whiskey, attempting to lift weights—in clothes that conveyed the randomness of a typical dude’s wardrobe. In their mix of overcoats and sweatpants, they seemed like a bunch of stoners and slackers within a scene conjured up during a good buzz; but it was also clear there was effort to back up the vision.David insisted that this assortment of printed T-shirts, twill pants, technical outerwear, and the like diverged from his previous collection of so-called normal clothes. While the two concepts sound pretty similar, here you could spot a built-in distinctness to each piece: the permanent creases in a pair of earthy dungarees; a metallic finish hand-printed on a cotton bomber; the duck boots in allover leather. He mentioned that in actual life these clothes would have accumulated from all different avenues—old, new, travel, sport. But David was ostensibly bypassing those experiences, offering immediate access to these hypothetical one-offs. And if you can get beyond the quasi-creepiness of these model mutts, you also notice how many of the items are also hybrids, which adds to their appeal. Should you be trying to justify the purchase of yet another white shirt, you likely wouldn’t regret the one unevenly blocked in linen and jacquard check.The deliberately unmatched pairings plus the recurring styling trick of sport socks worn high supported the slightly alternative, misfit vibe that recurs with frequency in David’s collections. His sensibility is intriguing even when the clothes don’t nudge the proverbial needle. “I wanted to take a step and look at the sociological aspect—how we behave,” he confirmed. “I [thought] to abduct specific characters and just study the human species.” In the end, the masks proved more expressive than your average model—whether or not his subliminal message was that all men are dogs.
17 January 2018
Guests arriving to Julien David’s show may have noticed the three models chilling in the center of the runway, perhaps observing nothing remarkable about their dress. On the flip side, they may not have noticed the couple caressing each other beside the runway entrance, dressed in what looked to be platinum pajamas. David confirmed backstage that he wanted to re-examine his own notions of ordinary. Naturally, this led him to developing the regular-fit jeans that opened the show, as well as the jean shirting, workwear jacket, and a roomy indigo dress with everyday appeal. Of course, the custom-washed denim is Japanese—no surprise given David’s base in Tokyo; and at 11 oz. with a light stretch, it is considered lightweight. Hardly ordinary. Same goes for other details: The material of a backpack was heat-molded nylon taffeta; David’s classic sneakers were vegetable-tanned cowhide; the denim lab coat was partially stone-bleached.But being true to himself also meant not abandoning visibly special fabrics, which is how David arrived at the synthetic chiffon which he treated to be waterproof, windproof, and super-shimmery. “I thought, if I use materials that cheap and I alter them, then it becomes my version,” he said. “It looks amazing but the base is totally normal.” And so ensued a collection that drew attention to itself by attempting to blend in. Near the end, a model stood up from his front row seat and walked the runway; he had been there in his nylon taffeta coat and knitted georgette Post-it yellow top all along. David found the process illuminating: “You know, these are things that you don’t question; it’s like they’ve always been there. That’s the feeling I was interested in.”This is where some might be inclined to point out similar exercises elsewhere. David noted, however, that his realization was personal, referencing the ordinary aspects he’s picked up from living in Japan, the U.S., and France. Certainly the way these looks were styled—active, pseudo-future sunglasses included—gave them curb appeal in a way that actual ordinary falls short of. But even as David delivered on the premise, one got the sense he won’t hang around here for too long. For him, normal seems like a novelty.
27 June 2017
Guests arriving to Julien David’s show may have noticed the three models chilling in the center of the runway, perhaps observing nothing remarkable about their dress. On the flip side, they may not have noticed the couple caressing each other beside the runway entrance, dressed in what looked to be platinum pajamas. David confirmed backstage that he wanted to re-examine his own notions of ordinary. Naturally, this led him to developing the regular-fit jeans that opened the show, as well as the jean shirting, workwear jacket, and a roomy indigo dress with everyday appeal. Of course, the custom-washed denim is Japanese—no surprise given David’s base in Tokyo; and at 11 oz. with a light stretch, it is considered lightweight. Hardly ordinary. Same goes for other details: The material of a backpack was heat-molded nylon taffeta; David’s classic sneakers were vegetable-tanned cowhide; the denim lab coat was partially stone-bleached.But being true to himself also meant not abandoning visibly special fabrics, which is how David arrived at the synthetic chiffon which he treated to be waterproof, windproof, and super-shimmery. “I thought, if I use materials that cheap and I alter them, then it becomes my version,” he said. “It looks amazing but the base is totally normal.” And so ensued a collection that drew attention to itself by attempting to blend in. Near the end, a model stood up from his front row seat and walked the runway; he had been there in his nylon taffeta coat and knitted georgette Post-it yellow top all along. David found the process illuminating: “You know, these are things that you don’t question; it’s like they’ve always been there. That’s the feeling I was interested in.”This is where some might be inclined to point out similar exercises elsewhere. David noted, however, that his realization was personal, referencing the ordinary aspects he’s picked up from living in Japan, the U.S., and France. Certainly the way these looks were styled—active, pseudo-future sunglasses included—gave them curb appeal in a way that actual ordinary falls short of. But even as David delivered on the premise, one got the sense he won’t hang around here for too long. For him, normal seems like a novelty.
25 June 2017
Julien David’s shows normally exist in an upbeat register, with clothes boasting dynamic surface details if not punchy colors. An acoustic version of Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” cast a mighty bleak mood over his latest men’s and women’s presentation—so much so that it was tempting to conclude that the utility-driven looks and antique dress accents were a present-day reminder of harder times. Viewed, however, as photos removed from this ambience, the collections assume a purposeful, polished character better aligned with the designer’s spirit. Backstage, David explained how his vision emerged from military, Boy Scouts, and “mountain living” starting points, noting how he broke down their respective dress codes to arrive at his own altered scales and streamlined design. Heavy-duty hardware and exaggerated utility pockets, for example, played off unstructured waxed-cotton flight jackets and massively cuffed cargo pants. Off the mountain came gigot sleeves, muted and mixed plaids, and lederhosen reconceived as a leather harness. Borrowing from the Scouts, David applied empty patches to tops, leaving the interpretation wide open—a different semiotic spin on what Lucas Ossendrijver showed at Lanvin. “They give the feeling that they stand for something, even though there’s nothing,” he explained. Maybe blankness is the branding we’ve been waiting for.Elsewhere, David’s school uniform dresses appeared less fusty than their vintage ancestors largely thanks to the coated lace and pleated mesh—the hiking boots also helped. And of all the military looks infiltrating the season, his did a fine job of appearing less threatening. His reasoning: “Uniforms are often worn by people who are not choosing to wear them.”Attention must be paid to the motif patterned across a collared top and soft aviator helmets that featured all the languages spoken in the European Union plus Japan, David’s second home (trivia:Suomea, the red highlighted bar, is Finnish). It was a strong conversation piece—accurately marking the present if not the future.
23 January 2017
Julien David’s shows normally exist in an upbeat register, with clothes boasting dynamic surface details if not punchy colors. An acoustic version of Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” cast a mighty bleak mood over his latest men’s and women’s presentation—so much so that it was tempting to conclude that the utility-driven looks and antique dress accents were a present-day reminder of harder times. Viewed, however, as photos removed from this ambience, the collections assume a purposeful, polished character better aligned with the designer’s spirit. Backstage, David explained how his vision emerged from military, Boy Scouts, and “mountain living” starting points, noting how he broke down their respective dress codes to arrive at his own altered scales and streamlined design. Heavy-duty hardware and exaggerated utility pockets, for example, played off unstructured waxed-cotton flight jackets and massively cuffed cargo pants. Off the mountain came gigot sleeves, muted and mixed plaids, and lederhosen reconceived as a leather harness. Borrowing from the Scouts, David applied empty patches to tops, leaving the interpretation wide open—a different semiotic spin on what Lucas Ossendrijver showed at Lanvin. “They give the feeling that they stand for something, even though there’s nothing,” he explained. Maybe blankness is the branding we’ve been waiting for.Elsewhere, David’s school uniform dresses appeared less fusty than their vintage ancestors largely thanks to the coated lace and pleated mesh—the hiking boots also helped. And of all the military looks infiltrating the season, his did a fine job of appearing less threatening. His reasoning: “Uniforms are often worn by people who are not choosing to wear them.”Attention must be paid to the motif patterned across a collared top and soft aviator helmets that featured all the languages spoken in the European Union plus Japan, David’s second home (trivia:Suomea, the red highlighted bar, is Finnish). It was a strong conversation piece—accurately marking the present if not the future.
23 January 2017
In showing both his Spring ’17 men’s and women’s collections today,Julien Davidhas joined the wave of designers recalibrating the fashion cycle on their own terms. Go figure, he also used waves as a metaphor that he rode from the subtropical southern islands of Japan to the material representation of sound. The mixed lineup worked in David’s favor; fixating on whether a waterproof taffeta parka appeared on a guy or girl (trick question, both) felt trivial compared with realizing that his unique fabrics and urban stylings don’t conform to the industry’s normative codes. To wit, stretch denim created from a Gobelin worsted technique that looked like digital tapestry; David showed it as both a workwear ensemble and a draped skirt. The crested checkered cotton pattern resembling sound insulation foam was equally dynamic as a clingy men’s tank and slouchy sweatshirt dress. The designer used a shaggy woven jacquard turned inside out and trimmed into stripes to capture a “city jungle vibe,” which expressed his theatrical personality, albeit more conceptually than the wordplay, whetherWavelengthon a ripstop pant leg orWavingon a bucket hat. By this point, one might assume that his softened volumes and self-described “crafty” techniques got drowned out by obvious visual puns, but this was not the case. Faintly tinted denim treated to a “rainbow bio-wash” and pigment-coated white denim spoke to David’s overriding instinct to let the R&D shine through. He noted how the double imperative of creativity and commerce motivated him to merge the collections. It was a smooth transition, made even smoother by his special designs of Bata’s reissued retro Bullets sneakers. A peek inside revealed a motif of Hokusai-inspired waves.
23 June 2016
In showing both his Spring ’17 men’s and women’s collections today,Julien Davidhas joined the wave of designers recalibrating the fashion cycle on their own terms. Go figure, he also used waves as a metaphor that he rode from the subtropical southern islands of Japan to the material representation of sound. The mixed lineup worked in David’s favor; fixating on whether a waterproof taffeta parka appeared on a guy or girl (trick question, both) felt trivial compared with realizing that his unique fabrics and urban stylings don’t conform to the industry’s normative codes. To wit, stretch denim created from a Gobelin worsted technique that looked like digital tapestry; David showed it as both a workwear ensemble and a draped skirt. The crested checkered cotton pattern resembling sound insulation foam was equally dynamic as a clingy men’s tank and slouchy sweatshirt dress. The designer used a shaggy woven jacquard turned inside out and trimmed into stripes to capture a “city jungle vibe,” which expressed his theatrical personality, albeit more conceptually than the wordplay, whetherWavelengthon a ripstop pant leg orWavingon a bucket hat. By this point, one might assume that his softened volumes and self-described “crafty” techniques got drowned out by obvious visual puns, but this was not the case. Faintly tinted denim treated to a “rainbow bio-wash” and pigment-coated white denim spoke to David’s overriding instinct to let the R&D shine through. He noted how the double imperative of creativity and commerce motivated him to merge the collections. It was a smooth transition, made even smoother by his special designs of Bata’s reissued retro Bullets sneakers. A peek inside revealed a motif of Hokusai-inspired waves.
23 June 2016
Retro-futurism colored by personal nostalgia, plus an intense sensitivity both to trompe l’oeil fabrications and long-fossilized workwear details: It sounds like a painfully complicated fashion recipe. YetJulien Davidsomehow managed to tie it all together. Today these ingredients were set sweetly in a collection that delivered progressive basics (with a bit of a twist) and hyper-colored, manga-flavored looks that will be catnip for the street style crowd.The first third of the collection was about the interplay between white, matte indigo, and shiny black. These three staple colors were arranged and rearranged in persuasive combinations, including a split skirt featuring 18 rectangular 3-D panels (a key collection garment) in bonded technical denim; white shirts and a jacket of cotton poplin, nylon twill, or jersey; and black leather-bonded pants, coats, and off-the-shoulder tunic dresses, but with little bulbous details, like more panels at the elbow of an especially “Yes, please!” black jacket.Phase two started in earnest after an interjection of plum denim-but-not-workwear looks. The focus was on coats, one studded panel dress, and that 3-D skirt again, all rendered in explosively toned patches printed with laser strafing and depictions of wide-eyed aliens taken fromGrendizer, an anime cartoon that David and his brother used to watch as kids. If you like a manga-print piece, then you’ll like these.Nearing the end of his orbit, David drifted into Courrèges territory by re-rendering his shapes in a combination of white faux leather and aluminum-coated jersey. Spanning genres past and putatively futuristic, this collection felt perfectly present.
4 March 2016
At one end, you haveAkira, a fantastically dystopian anime film from 1988, set in 2019 Neo-Tokyo. At the other, you havemen’s Fashion Weekin present-day Paris. These two realms overlapped within an unmarked subterranean space off the Champs-Élysées, whereJulien David’s Fall collection brought elements of the cult classic movie into high definition. Notwithstanding the explosive silver-spiked hair, the designer’s futuristic vision exists independent of its inspiration and possesses none of the loaded tone. In fact, the most radical aspect to his sturdy, forgiving, functional clothes was their neutrality. David, essentially, created permutations of a workwear uniform in spongy bonded stretch Japanese denim. To the foundation work jacket and trousers he added a rounded cape, knee-length coat, sweatshirt, hoodie, and track pants. As if the engineered pockets, with their raw edges delineating islands on the expanses of blue, white, and navy, weren’t challenging enough, each garment was reversible. For David, this was a forward-minded move (ditto, although for different reasons, the cashmere coat styled backward).Further on, he shifted back to his characteristic textural eccentricities with specially treated “wavy” wool in flamingo pink, heathered jacquard, and overprint outerwear quilted in a spike motif. The desire to experiment clearly comes naturally to David, who said that working in Tokyo has stoked that fire even further. Yet every look remained relatable—whether sporty, nautical, or polished—largely thanks to the styling. There’s something comforting to the idea that one of the industry’s more imaginative designers believes we will still be sporting sweatshirts around our shoulders no matter what the future holds.
21 January 2016
Julien Davidlikes to think of his pre-collections as opportunities for experiment. His latest outing conjured images of the designer as a kind of drive-in-movie mad scientist, jury-rigging gadgets at his studio-cum-laboratory. It wasn’t that David seemed in any way mad, merely that his collection struck that vein of ’60s culture where everyone was consumed with nostalgia for the future. If you’d asked someone 40 years ago how they envisioned 2016, they would have described hoverboards, robots that do our chores, virtual reality. And they would have been right! Mostly wrong, but kind of right. David’s collection paid tribute to that space race–era optimism.David doesn’t usually go for a vintage vibe, and here, he referenced it with a few canny gestures. There was the collection’s chipper palette, for one, and tweaked mod silhouettes. Thanks to the tweaking, you wouldn’t mistake these clothes for ones dug out of a thrift store bin—David attenuated his A-lines or blew out their volumes to create fresh, slightly oddball proportions. (He does like an oddball proportion.) He also introduced a modern sense of street by giving his cropped wool trousers an elastic waistband and a track pant–ish slouch, and offering knits and blouses in the shape of loose-fitting tees. Meanwhile, David’s robot prints—one in silk twill check and one digital, on jersey—had the distinctively camp attitude of a person looking back on the past’s idea of the future with a knowing yet appreciative wink.Of all David’s experiments, it will likely be his play with textiles that pays dividends in future collections. His fringed fil coupe and organza were ripe for continued development; so too his clever idea of patchworking material together and sealing the pieces with small rivets. In both cases, the effects could be created using offcuts of fabric—material that might otherwise go to waste.Thatwould be a way of contending with the future—not the past’s idea of it, but our actual own.
4 January 2016
This was the 10th Paris womenswear show in the cutely uniqueJulien Davidnarrative: His is a label conceived in France but entirely manufactured in Japan, where he lived for a decade. Seven years after launching, he has 100 stockists and says that 40 percent of his sales hail from the country in which his clothes are made.So it seemed right and proper that today’s collection was a gentle exploration of the similarities and differences between his two home nations. The differences were articulated most clearly in his contrasting use of sunflower and cherry blossom prints or workwear-lean jackets and carpenter coats and pants. The panniers on asymmetrical-pleat skirts could have been sourced from Marie Antoinette’s wedding dress orDior’s Bar suit and served—if you stretched it a bit—to produce a Gallic version of the ornamental exaggerationohashori.There was plenty of denim—in dungaree dresses, more carpenter coats, topstitched jeans, and appealingly curve-leg, four-button pants. Nîmes, France, is where legend has it this most ubiquitous cotton twill originated, and despite the role of North American teenage culture in ubiquitizing denim, it is (arguably) Japan where some of today’s finest quality is milled. David’s is from Okayama.Vinyl laminated over embroidery on elastic-cinched, flute-hipped T-shirts, fleur-de-lis fil coupes, undone Brigitte Bardot bustiers as outerwear, and resin-backed cotton crop tops were among the further passing pleasures here. The soundtrack was a willfully strange collision of “Needle in the Hay” and “Brush Your Teeth,” while the mustachioed gentleman on a silk jacquard romper worn beneath a full black skirt and bustier was Henri, the designer’s grandfather. This wasJean de FlorettemeetsSwept Away, marinated in David’s personal preoccupations. Together these ingredients made for an interesting and quietly progressive pot-au-feu. Or nikujaga.
2 October 2015
You would have needed to pay extra special attention to the embroidered masks worn by Julien David's models to notice their various expressions and how they riffed off his theme of "hyperbolic characters." The animations included "funny, evil, worry, king, and serene," which the designer said he conceived as a way to "extrapolate or accentuate the human feelings through the entire look."While the correlation between character and outfit wasn't always clear, the overall collection felt concise. David repeated fabrications, such as the crinkled natural wool suiting that opened the show; forcibly rumpled twice to retain its form, the material resembled cracked asphalt in gray and rice paper in white. David's desire to craft a narrative does not override his knack for divining the best use of his innovative fabrics—a paraffin-coated lyocell rayon became his dedicated parka material, whereas he reserved a cotton dévoré of "mutant daisies" (spotted earlier this week in his women's Resort collection) for the dressier grouping. Shorts and wide-leg cropped pants directed focus downward to leather storm welt lace-ups made in Northampton. This devoted sneaker enthusiast doing proper shoes proved the strongest statement of all, as if David had matured his label even while holding tight to fun pieces like a laminated terry sweatshirt and a cartoonish jumpsuit in ripstop cotton.The mask corresponding to the final model, dressed in an all-white corduroy jumpsuit, no longer featured a face, only a checkerboard of passementerie. David joked that for a second he considered modeling the look himself and no one would have noticed. That's when it became clear that the masks might have been a leveling device all along: They neutralized the person to play up the clothes.
25 June 2015
As the industry increasingly shifts away from the label of Cruise in favor of Resort, Julien David has decided the former sounds more fun, especially because cruisers are a type of skateboard and the Tokyo-based designer has been collaborating with Quiksilver for his men's range. David isn't much for literal, though, so this collection was neither a nod to skaters nor floating cities: It did, however, project a leisurely vibe via a lively mélange of materials.Passementerie wound continuously up and down nearly every inch of tulle on a double-breasted jacket, shift dress, pants, and crop top so that the white relief resembled scribbles. There were "mutant daisies"—colliding blooms of dévoré cotton on a nylon base, which were worked into a breezy, vented shirtdress.Marinièrestripes interspersed knit and organza. The laminated terry sweatpants would be a boon for rainy walks. Add the indigo-dyed waffle top spliced with organza—transparency being a recurring motif—and you had a packing list for a Tyler Brûlé-approved getaway. Buoyant padded skirts notwithstanding, these clothes were impressively compact—none more so than the netted top, now a Julien David signature, which he embroidered this season with tiny white diamonds. Even the parka (in cool cotton canvas) and denim (in softened cotton linen) seemed light and trimmed down, as if shedding their winter weight. You needed only to touch the black perfecto to conclude its interlaced bamboowashi(yes, Japanese paper) was leagues lighter than your average lawn chair—or leather.David said the backdrop—a collage of touristy pamphlets printed in pink—captured the kitschy aspect of cruise that appealed to him this season. But as a whole, the collection had the opposite effect; it just coasted on its cool.
23 June 2015
Laid out, the base ingredients of this collection—camouflage, masculinity, equestrian and military garb—seemed unpromising in their staple-ness. Yet this outing proved a slight delight. Julien David's chief motif was inverted camouflage, rendered in tape or print or intarsia (or tape on print) and fashioned with the intention of being visible. Hardly a new idea, true. Along with a secondary decoration—a slightly stretched line-drawing print of parading soldiers—his camo's patterns played on silk jumpsuits, wide pants whose marching orders ended just north of thick-soled high-tops, piped riding jackets and double-face cotton, and liberally vented greatcoats. Sometimes, underneath those greatcoats (which had contra-colored lapels that emitted a faint aura of a Jermyn Street dressing gown), he slipped in a high-cut nylon parka.The impact came via David's marshaling of his clothes. He has a facility for mining unexpected yet harmonious interactions that can be tedious to describe in overlong detail, but are a pleasure to have the eye conquered by—e.g., the just-so flash of drawstring fishtail finning out from underneath the base of a piped hunting hem, or the interaction of wide cuff with puckered seam on his pants. There was also the pleasing harmony of a navy nylon technical shirt beneath a burgundy taped camo jerkin. The parts were fine, and the sum of them more so.
6 March 2015
For Julien David, pre-collections provide an opportunity to update existing ideas and develop new ones without committing to a certain theme—focused R&D with added "fun treatments," he said. And up close, that's exactly what it was, beginning with a Japanese 3-D velvet of green and blue palm trees. The relief technique, David explained, involves laminating the fabric everywhere except atop the shapes, so they eventually appear raised and fuzzy. Interestingly, the same effect in black resembled stamped leather; in white, it could have been fur. David coaxed jersey to behave like fleece in one case and flannel in another. To break up the matte materials, he introduced liquid gold silk lamé and an iridescent pinstripe, also in silk. Polka dot flocked onto netting—a holdover from last season—served as a layering piece, or as David put it, an accessory, presumably because actual jewelry would get lost in his textures.David's so-called "laboratory" time seemed most evident in an ingenious trick whereby lapels nested within a jacket instead of on top of it. Suffice it to say, his studio fused the fabric to maintain its upright frame. Denim with shadowed shapes where patches once belonged further corroborated his original objective, especially because his urban-ingenue silhouettes remained status quo.Incidentally, the 3-D velvet also made an appearance in his menswear collection from two days earlier, although those clothes were predominantly businessman-motivated. "Work versus play," David mused, as if revealing that there was a theme to Pre-Fall all along. Then again, that phrase just as aptly describes David's creative process.
23 January 2015
At the off, this sudden transition from overtly surf 'n' skate-touched streetwear to something that aped business attire looked like a straightforwardly commercial decision. And it's not as if there's anything wrong with taking care of business. In fact, though, Julien David said he'd been inspired to explore the formal uniform of the wage-slave man thanks to his new office's proximity to Liverpool Street station in London's financial district—a hub of the harried. But nothing here conformed to prosaic dress codes.David's hair-gelled executives wore shades—an Oakley collaboration—and carried hard-sided briefcases decorated with palm-tree reliefs in laminated "3-D" velvet, a motif that rustled onward on biker jackets, thick-soled skate shoes, and knee-length shorts. Their jackets were soft, loose, and long—some almost to the knee—and made in cotton jersey. These were layered under nylon fishtail parkas or over those bikers. A distant relative of Maharishi Snopants sported elasticized drawstrings on each leg and had a drill stiffness to the touch. One look featured a jacquard sweater proclaiming, "Strictly business," with the second word in a font that mirrored the one used on the poster for the movieRisky Business, Tom Cruise's finest piece of juvenilia. The movie this collection was most reminiscent of, however, wasPoint Break: David has reincarnated the "ex-presidents," and they're looking for one last score.
21 January 2015
Make dance, not war. That could have been the subtext of Julien David's engaging show this afternoon, which was held at the Musée de l'Armée in Paris, a stone's throw from Napoleon's tomb. As David explained, his collection was inspired by a dancer friend who trained at the Bolshoi and is currently performing with the San Francisco Ballet; he said he wanted to capture not only her grace but also her incredible athleticism. With that in mind, the designer looked to create a feeling of movement in the clothes, an effect he achieved particularly well in skirts and dresses of bonded jersey that had a sculpted yet spontaneous-seeming flare. There was also a nice sense of dynamism in David's metallic pieces, made out of an especially light-catching lamé, which were some of the standouts of the show. The dance reference manifested as well in sheer tulle tees with a little off-center ruffle kicking out at the hem. One of the best ideas David had was to pair a dress-length version of the tee with a super-narrow pencil skirt with a matching ruffle; it looked fresh. That was one of the more straightforward looks, and in general it was the simplest stuff that fared best—a bonded jersey hoodie, a slouchy sweater with beads knitted into the marl and shirting fabric in the back, any of the several garments made from a fabric that looked like washed-out denim but wasn't. When the show really worked, it conjured genuine insouciance, the unmannered style of a dancer heading home from the studio after a day at the barre.
26 September 2014
Julien David is in a party mood, but not always in the way one might think. For Resort, he decided to tackle every party theme he could think of, and developed prints like old-fashioned fair ride tickets on a drapey silk twill and party hats that, he observed, could just as easily be "pizza slices trying to look like party hats." Still, once he got going with the celebratory theme, David started wondering what was so happy about it all. As a result, the pixelated balloon motif has not a smiley face in sight—just the opposite, in fact.The party-favor palette, particularly neon pink and green, returned on David's popular platform sneakers and chinos and—improbable as it may sound—winningly as jacquard accents on a white seersucker jacket with a floral print. Eye-catching textures included a vaporized jacquard treatment, a quilted overprint that fused aluminum to cotton nylon, a fused silk skirt with a floral relief, and a jacquard weave incorporating little squares of pink foil in a checkerboard motif.David also revisited his best-selling confetti tops, which are more like accessories than clothing. Other streetwise accessories, from field hats to earrings, are a fast-growing category for the designer. His most recent earrings are ruthenium-treated for a black finish, or studded with pearls. Elsewhere, the designer's collaboration with Quiksilver on men's surf attire has produced items such as a wet suit bearing a tuxedo print and racing-check details, all made entirely of recycled materials. The board shorts are upcycled from plastic bottles (it takes six to eleven bottles per pair, depending on the style). Women's options are soon to follow.
25 June 2014
Julien David is riding the wave of a new collaboration with the surf brand Quiksilver, showing the first fruits of the arrangement in his men's spring collection today.The cozy relationship made for good vibrations. David, citing Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and pro skateboarder Christian Hosoi, combined beach culture with the surprise element of jazz to create four-stretch board shorts, paraffin-coated cotton suits, baggy seersucker suits, plaid parkas with elongated tails, and lacquered jacquards with a faint Caribbean vibe. The high-low message was punctuated by bow ties, slightly stacked sneakers, and matching caps (worn atop shaggy surfer wigs to Warholian effect). A lifeguard couldn't have saved one trompe l'oeil tuxedo tee, but otherwise it was a very impressive effort; the line is made in Japan, greatly increasing its quality, not to mention cost."Chic surfers," said David backstage, explaining that the two full wetsuit looks at the end—worn by pro snowboarder Iouri Podladtchikov and pro surfer Marc Lacomare—were made of Yulex, a kind of recycled neoprene. Seems the designer is doing his part to reduce ocean waste. All the while a live jazz band in scuba masks and snorkels tooted on their brass instruments. Not bad for a former scarf label.
24 June 2014
A pair of artist Aaron Young's sculptures set the scene for Julien David's new collection. Mangled barricades dipped in 24-karat gold, they were a visual metaphor for his elevated streetwear. David paid special attention to fabrics this season, and they gave a lift to recognizable shapes—sweatshirts, tees, track pants. Metal-wire fringe was the flashiest of his experiments: A long T-shirt dress was looped with six kilometers of the stuff, and it took the machine that did it twenty-four hours, yet it retained the ease inherent to the silhouette. Same goes for the texturized black leather flight jacket and A-line skirt. It took a heck of a lot of work to get the leather to pucker the way it did, but you wouldn't know it from the cool street vibes it gave off. (Credit also goes to the collection's fuzzy-sided flatform shoes and headgear, a surprisingly cute hybrid of bucket hat and baseball cap.)Those vibes are the key to David's ascent from 2012 ANDAM winner to Tokyo store owner in 2014. He also just signed on with Net-a-Porter. This collection should keep the love flowing in both directions. But we bet the e-tailer asks him for a little more of the sparkly metal fringe pieces and slightly less black. Because he was so involved with fabric development here, David more or less avoided color, and you couldn't help but miss it.
27 February 2014
Julien David had never done a pre-collection. But in the process of putting together his Fall ’14 menswear collection, he said, "I selected my fabrics and I couldn't resist using a few for women."From less than this have collections been born. David's pre-collection gave a feminine slant to his men's, with the added advantage that some fabrics, like the densely woven multicolored jacquards, in fact looked more fitting for a miniskirt than a full men's suit, as David had shown them. The acid-treated crinkled cotton separates and netted gingham had the street-easy David trademark but with enough interest to make even the simple shapes pop.Some of the collection looked as though it might've been borrowed directly from menswear, like the oversize denim jacket David made in collaboration with the Korean-Japanese label Ambush. (It was embroidered with tags and printed on the back withembuscade—French for "ambush.") Its counterpart on the girly-girl end of the spectrum was a series of showpieces in foil-printed tulle, meant to be worn over other items. "I call them 'clothes as accessories,'" David said. The menswear lent fabrics to the women's, but that particular textile (if that's the word for what's essentially a fishing net) doesn't look destined to seep back into the designer's men's collection.
17 January 2014
Julien David might have had the art project of the season. He decided he wanted control over all elements of the show experience, not just the clothing. He'd been inspired, he said, by the German idea ofGesamtkunstwerk,the "total work of art" popularized by the noted Teutonic control freak Richard Wagner, for which a creator handles all artistic elements of a piece, from sight to sound and everything in between.So David cobbled together all the disparate strands that go into a show himself. He tapped his friend, the New York-based artist Antoine Wagner, to work with him on an animated film to project as the models walked. He commissioned an a cappella set of screaming rap by the experimental West Coast hip-hop duo Death Grips for the soundtrack. And he street-cast the models, as usual, for maximum you've-never-seen-this-guy-before effect. (Unless you happened to be from Seoul, in which case you might have known show opener Ryoo Seung-bum as a major Korean movie star.) It was a spectacle of sound and vision. "I wanted to make it more theatrical," David said. "It's at night."But as they say, if you want to make God laugh, make a plan. That night, a mere hour later, two other old friends, a designer and an artist—Raf Simons and Sterling Ruby—debuted a total work of art of their own. It was destined to dominate the headlines, and deservedly so. But fortunately for David, his collection stood on its own without the spectacle. The spectacle may, in fact, have whittled away a bit at what's best about his clothes—the fanatical attention paid to the fabrics and details, belied by their slackerish style. Here, David exerted a greater degree of control than ever before over the fabrics, teasing the threads of jersey sweats into tangly clouds of faux shearling, and even guiding the crinkle of his crinkled cotton suiting with machine stitching. The densely woven jacquard suit in Froot Loops colors was a minor masterpiece of muchness. It suggested that as brain rattling as theGesamtkunstwerkturned out to be, David's complete work of artistry may be best appreciated on the garment level.
14 January 2014
Julien David called his Spring show "The Tribe of the Seven Seas." Backstage he rattled them all off: the Adriatic, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian, the Persian Gulf, and the Arabian. Each one inspired a group of clothes. "I tried to make a collection with stuff from different places," David said, explaining that he got the idea from castings, when models descend from all points on the globe for his show. But this was no ethnography lesson. The world is flat—cute is cute wherever you go.Water was David's loose theme, but mostly the seas motif was a way for him to explore the special fabrics he loves. There was quite a range on the runway tonight: holographic polyurethane that had the rubbery consistency of seaweed, an open-weave nylon with dots meant to represent tiny pearls of caviar, iridescent cotton jacquard that looked like dappled moonlight. David whipped it all into what the kids are wearing today: oversize hoodies, varsity jackets elongated into dresses, paper-bag-waist shorts. Those paper-bag waists kept the mood particularly youthful. Playful palm trees and giant corals (he called them "cosmic sea fruits") stayed on message.If it were up to us, we'd have tossed overboard the tulle net David used as a layering piece on V-neck dresses. Too fussy for the streetwear vibe of the rest. But not those life-preserver intarsia sweaters—those are keepers.
23 September 2013
Julien David is a Frenchman living in Tokyo. Culture clash is close to the heart of his enterprise by default. So for his Spring collection, he found himself layering one more faraway land into the mix: Jamaica. A recent viewing of Kevin Macdonald's documentary,Marley,had him thinking of reggae stars, how they'd mix a little of whatever was at hand into their wardrobes. It suited his own unlikely mix of incredible Japanese fabrics, low-slung streetwear styling, and inexplicable bits of je ne sais quoi.His was a Jamaica of the mind. The islands he printed on sweat suits and cotton shirts weren't meant to look real; pixelated and swimming with tiny sharks, they were defiantlyunreal.That fit the cartoon quality his best pieces have. His varsity jackets were stretched to knee length and worn under jackets as tunic dresses, and his dropped-crotch suits were cut in swirling, taffy-colored paisley jacquards custom-created for the collection.It would be easy enough to dismiss these as fantasy, but David's seriousness of purpose and commitment to wonder packs a sneaky punch. The timid can bypass his passementerie jackets and sugary colors for the simpler shirt jacket in navy, of course. But his fans and faithful, like Colette's Sarah Andelman, seem to find themselves following him into the farther reaches. A spoken-word piece by the proto-reggae bard Linton Kwesi Johnson was droning over the speakers as attendees filed in to his show. "There's something very soft in the way he says things," David said, "but the impact is very strong." The comparison applies.
25 June 2013
For Julien David, it always starts with fabrics. "I was interested in pieces that were fluid, transparent, and lightweight, and mixing them with other, more textured materials—things with a hairy, woolly quality," he said backstage. That dichotomy could've set up a compelling push-pull, but the sheer stuff didn't quite measure up to David's more substantial materials. The polka dot–embroidered mesh, for instance, only served to obscure what was one of his best ideas: a paparazzi print of camera-wielding photographers and cartoonlike flashes of light that he cut into blouses and cropped pants. If he hadn't skipped the mesh overlay on one button-down, you would've missed the clever print entirely. David has a real eye for pattern, and it would be good to see him develop his prints more in the future.One signature that he did deliver on: coats. Hooded down puffers with contrast printed panels in front had a serious cool factor. David accessorized a black-and-gold version with his first-ever handbag, which his program notes proudly announced was made in France. David develops most of his fabrics at a mill in Japan, where he lived before launching his label in Paris two years ago. The most interesting material he came up with for Fall was a shaggy wool that lent a quirky feel to a classic, almost couture-ish tailleur. He described his woman this season as "a well-educated girl who went out on her own and got a wild side." The collection he dreamed up for her didn't feel quite resolved, but there were some good pieces for his retailers to get excited about.
25 February 2013
Julien David nabbed ANDAM's Fashion Award this summer. That qualifies him as a grown-up, if anything does. Still, or maybe because of the prize, David found himself thinking about his youth this season. Spoiled Child is the name of his cute new collection, and backstage he mentioned that he remembered sometimes wanting to fit in and sometimes wanting to rebel. "I wanted to play with that idea," he said.Play was the operative word. David's models peered out behind long bangs and sported flat shoes with ankle socks—they looked about as serious as a bunch of eighth graders. The first girl out wore a tank top that spelled "dinosaur," which you could take a couple of ways: One, kids love the prehistoric creatures; two, anybody not young is, well, prehistoric. Dinosaurs also appeared on a naïve print used for a shirtdress, and another print featured silver spoons, as in "born with one in your mouth."All of that will satisfy the school rebels, but what about fitting in, graduating to the big time, or at least joining the upperclassmen? There was less of that in evidence here tonight, but a sweet pantsuit in a tropical wool print worn with a sequined tank top suggested that David is quite capable of designing for grown-ups when he decides to do so.
26 September 2012
The journey on Julien David's runway went from the great outdoors of snowy slopes to the great-there's-a-taxi outdoors of city streets. The collection was more overtly thematic than usual, but he mostly managed it with typical cleverness. In the well-worn aprés-ski territory, David turned puffa quilting into tiny circles on a silver party frock, and if you looked closely at the Fair Isle he pieced into anoraks and cut into chic little hooded blousons and skirts, you'd see city skylines and Hummers. "Our eyes are so used to seeing those Tyrolean patterns that you don't really see the difference," David explained.The axis that spun country toward town was a crisp white shirtdress printed with two views—one mountains, the other a cityscape—abstracted as if seen through shutters. (In the urban glare and blare, the Tyrolean motif shrank into shirt collars, and there David's sneakily avant-garde tailoring was what stood out. It came in what he called a "bidirectional" houndstooth, which subtly zigzags from left to right. It's custom-made for him, as most of his fabrics are, in Japan. It's easy to see why David's coats are the thing that sell most at his longtime retailers like the Webster and Colette, and now at new supporters like Browns, Lane Crawford, and tough-to-crack Susan of Burlingame. Coolly elegant street wear is David's strength, and logically his comfort zone. Credit him for leaving it, but knowing when to come home.
27 February 2012
Julien David returned to his home base of Tokyo last season a week after the tsunami, a sensitive moment to say the least. "The ground was shaking for a month and a half afterward," he explained backstage after his show. That cemented a collection concept that had been kicking around his head for a while—that of the big crunch. In short: It's the big bang in reverse, and yes, it means the end of the world.But David's collection wasn't apocalyptic. In fact, it had a springy, street-bound life to it. (To wit: The Webster's Laure Heriard Dubreuil, who currently stocks the line, beamed afterward, "Lots of things for Miami!") A tweed jacket, worn with skinny jeans and suede Birkenstock-like sandals, got its hourglass waist from crunched-in gathers. David turned despair into the swirling teardrop-tattoo print on airy georgette blouses and knotted scarves. Ideas about displacement and tremors led to the shifted lapel (evidence of a clever and skilled tailor) on a sugary pink wallpaper-print blazer, and the random little patches of herringbone that interrupted the uniform pattern on a gingham shirt.Though subtle, it's those details that make David, an utter fabric wonk, stand apart from any other Tom, Dick, or Henrik sewing up a billowy anorak. The best part of his show is heading backstage to study at close range the fabrics he spends two months each season developing exclusively for his label with a mill in Ichinomiya. This time it was a gorgeous, lightweight double-faced denim jacquard, cut into a little blazer and sleeveless trench with finished seams that you imagine will fly off Dubreuil's racks, and that blink-and-miss-it but very cool gingham. David is no copyist, but his thoughtful and highly original approach to street wear recalls Junya Watanabe. He might just be getting started, but you'd be smart to watch this space.
26 September 2011
Up-and-comer Julien David pulled in a small but influential crowd for his runway debut today. The designer, who's spent time working for Narciso Rodriguez and Ralph Lauren, began his own label of neoclassical printed-silk twill scarves in 2008. Last season was his first ready-to-wear: a capsule collection he describes as street wear—trapeze-shape anoraks, baggy shorts—in high-end fabrics. It also had an edgy undercurrent via Tokyo, where David has been living for the past five-some years.Of course, the burning question here is whether David merits the spotlight of a Parisian runway. The short answer: He does. Fall skewed more elegant than Spring, but he was clearly still kicking around the idea of volume in a coat—a piece that was easily the heart of this collection. David makes his beautifully in a drop-waisted and gently flared silhouette cut out of a luxuriously hefty tweed— made special for him in Japan. He then gives them structure through thick exposed seams and refined internal ones.The overall look ran to the cool and boyish, underlined by flat black leather boots with colored soles. David hasn't fully abandoned his scarf-y roots. There were dresses cut to look like two square scarves sewn together, and a wild cartoony print of detritus like wire, foam, and chains still followed the classic frame-decoration-and-centerpiece scheme.Each model's face was covered with an organza mask on which her face was pixelated—a witty visual trick that nodded to David's fellow Tokyo-ites Rei and Junya. Though, unlike them, he gave an explanation. "I wanted to show a different perception of what a chic lady is," he said. "We did this for transformation and confusion."
7 March 2011