Pillings (Q8904)
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Pillings is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Pillings |
Pillings is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
When the first few looks came out at this season’s Pillings show, which took place in Tokyo’s Science Museum, it was unclear if Ryota Murakami had sold out. The Pillings designer has leveled up his operation in recent seasons thanks to sizable investment by Ron Herman, which has allowed him to scale up production, and hire PR and sales staff.As things progressed, it turned out there was no reason to worry. First and foremost a knitwear designer, Murakami’s talent lies in the extraordinary delicacy with which he warps and twists his garments in beautifully offbeat ways. This time the fine knitted cardigans and translucent sweaters were enlivened with extra sleeves and holes, or layers that appeared as though they had been stuck to the front of the body, while white cotton shirts were given uneven seams that pulled the fabric in asymmetric tucks and folds across the torso. It all made for strangely captivating mutations that were often as commercially viable as they were creative.This season also marked the first time the designer had used machine-knitting instead of hand-knitting, which unlocked yet more of his potential. The tiny eyelets on soft wool cardigans, and the unusual ways they encased the chest, proved the brand had lost none of the warmth and sensitivity that makes it so appealing in the first place. Later came knitted dresses stiffened with coats of resin, and crinkled nylon dresses that Murakami said were inspired by trash bags.Following the crush of press backstage, Murakami expressed a sense of fear at how the relentless dynamism of the modern world, particularly Instagram, is causing us all to forget to stop and smell the roses. “I feel like I’m becoming oblivious to small things, like the beauty of the sunlight filtering through the trees, or noticing that the sky is brighter than usual today,” he said. “I thought that I should try to have a quieter perspective, which was the starting point for this collection.” He got the idea from the writer Yoshikichi Furui and his 1970s short storyYoko. “He’s the kind of writer who picks up all the subtle things that would normally be overlooked. I think that way of expression itself is something that is really needed in today’s world.”When asked how he felt about the collection himself, the designer was characteristically self-deprecating. “I don’t have much confidence,” he said. That diffidence is undeniably part of Murakami’s charm, but this collection showed that he is also uncompromising.
There’s nothing braver than that.
5 September 2024
It’s been a year since we last saw Pillings at Tokyo Fashion Week. This afternoon, in a show that ran two days after the official Tokyo fall 2024 schedule ended, we gathered in the wooden lecture hall of the Jiyu Gakuen Girls’ School to see what designer Ryota Murakami has been working on.We started with a trio of bright blue knits before moving onto cream cable knit sweaters and cardigans, some embedded with little stone angels (a close-up view revealed that the angels were holding little knitting needles, to give the impression that they had sewn the sweaters themselves). So far, so charmingly Pillings.But then what was this? Louchely tailored trousers? White tuxedo shirts? Wax leather coats? Pillings is mostly known for its purposefully higgledy-piggledy knitwear, but this time Murakami demonstrated that he had plenty of other tricks up his sleeve. The trousers had deep pockets that plunged forwards towards the crotch (chicer than it sounds), oversized woolly suits crumpled richly around the body, and those aforementioned shirts had collars that looked like paper pinwheels. Knitting remained the focal point of the collection and the standouts were the textured knitted dresses, which appeared to float on the body like clouds of gossamer.Behind Pillings’s upgrade is a new partnership with The Sazaby League, a Japanese retail company with considerable resources and a network that includes Ron Herman Japan. As well as financial support and office space, they are providing Murakami with PR and merchandising staff, and intend to train knitters to help Murakami’s business realize its full potential. Best of all, they’re leaving his vision for the brand untouched. “They haven’t told me a single word about what to design. I have been given free rein to do everything,” Murakami said. “In the past I had to limit the number of samples I could make due to budget issues. This time, I have been able to create pieces that I had given up on making before.” How rare it is to see such trust in creativity from those holding the purse strings these days, and what a lesson for the wider industry.Despite his newfound stability, Murakami’s core message for Pillings remains unchanged. “It’s for people who don’t fit in well with the rest of society, or who feel as though they’re a bit of an outcast,” he said.
His previous collection—which referenced sweater-devouring moths as misunderstood rejects—conveyed vulnerability and withdrawal from society; this new one felt like an emancipation. “When I look back at that collection about moths, I feel like I was creating an escape for my mind,” Murakami said. “But this time, rather than running away, I felt like I was taking a step forward.”
19 March 2024
When Ryota Murakami was eight years old growing up in Osaka, he showed up at school one day wearing a quirky wool sweater that his mother had lovingly knitted for him. “I was ridiculed for it,” he recalled backstage at his runway show, where he presented the knitwear he now designs himself under his brand Pillings. “Because of that trauma at school I became conscious of clothes, and I started designing so that I could maybe find some approval.”This season, the now-34-year-old designer continued riffing on his childhood trauma with a collection that was about feeling like an outcast. You might assume a moth is a knitwear designer’s biggest enemy, for example, but for an eccentric like Murakami it represents a kindred spirit. After spending the past season feeling dejected about his work, Murakami found himself gazing up at the moths fluttering around under the street lamps of his neighborhood, thinking about the way they represent hope as they fly towards the light, even though they’re unpopular with people.The idea manifested in moth-eaten holes that served as perversely appealing decorations on knitted slip dresses, or crochet iterations of the wool-hungry insects attached to vests and sweaters. Elsewhere, lines of music were stitched in intentionally messy threads across the chest (“a nod to people who are clumsy or out of tune”), and wide-legged wool trousers spooled at the ankles in a contemporary silhouette.A graduate of Coconogacco (a school in Japan that encourages its students to push at the boundaries of their creativity), Murakami is good at twisting his pieces into new and inventive shapes, and going against the formulaic grain that knitwear usually adheres to. That inventiveness showed up in cableknit braids that went the ‘wrong’ way across cardigans, while small swatches of lace-knit detailing materialized in seemingly random areas on sweaters. The knits also incorporated pockets in unconventional places at the sides, which was why the models came out hugging themselves. It turned out to be a new way of looking at pocket functionality: “When you’re feeling anxious, you can put your hands in to calm down. I made them with the image of being wrapped in a blanket to protect yourself.”Despite being rooted in what might be regarded as self-pity, Murakami’s work has a distinctly positive feel, and he’s onto something with his edgy, off-kilter knits.
In a full circle moment following his show, Murakami appeared wearing a floral jumper that had also been knitted for him by his mother. This time though, he wasn’t met with any ridicule, only applause.
16 March 2023