For Ryota Iwai, the everyday offers a never-ending fount of inspiration for his collections at Auralee.
So much so that the suggestion that he could ever be exhausted at looking at the mundane was “a very scary thought,” he said through a translator after the show. “Ideally life can remain inspirational as we go on and [I’m] just going to continue doing the same thing.”
This time, it was a friend’s ability to effortlessly blend new clothes with old favorites that influenced the season. “It’s the idea of these sort of relics that you have, items from your past,” said Iwai, who felt such keepsakes gave a glimpse into a person’s history.
Out came silhouettes that swung between polished and comfortable. There were supple leather blousons used as vests or replacing a shirt; trousers worn long and loose around the leg; flannel wool overalls turned smart with a poplin shirt peeking through the open collar. A color palette rife with charcoal, olive and browns, with flashes of green, teal and red telegraphed a lightly vintage note.
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It might be argued that you could thrift those checked sweaters, paint-splattered workwear trousers or a puffer turned fuzzy with age. But that would be discounting the sophistication at play behind these lived-in textures developed in-house, apparent on closer inspection.
While Iwai isn’t the only designer who draws from reality, few have his knack for hitting the sweet spot between warm familiarity and desirability so consistently.
