“Music is the Answer / To your problems / Keep on moving / Then you can solve them…” These all-important lyrics soundtracked the year of 1998, courtesy of Danny Tenaglia and Celeda’s house classic Music Is The Answer (Dancin’ and Prancin’). 22 years later, and now at a fashion show opposed to rave, the sentiment remains true today. Issey Miyake united the joy of music with the art of dressing at the Centre Georges Pompidou this morning. Following the last Issey Miyake womenswear spectacular, Satoshi Kondo and the brand’s design team devoted this AW20 collection to the love of jazz.
First came boys carrying Issey-stamped LPs, sporting a ravishing display of pleated culottes in the most vivid hues: think corals, yellows and the clearest ocean blues. What followed was a carefully curated chaos of fine Jazz talent, with dancers in tuxedos, acrobats on Cyr wheels and a full live band joining the party. Some came in light cotton twinsets splattered in technicolour via painterly brush-strokes, others more subdued in caramel-hued, pleated dungarees. Cello and sax players sported overcoats scribbled with the instruments they played with ferocious might. Bright, energetic and terrifically made, these clothes breathed life into a somewhat bleak January morning. Proceedings climaxed with the chorus of musicians and dancers encouraging the audience to get on their feet and have a morning boogie, proving that despite only being two collections in, designer Satoshi Kondo and his team at Homme Plissé are injecting a whole lot of happiness back into the spectacle of fashion shows.
Photographs by Mitchell Sams.
