Yesterday, Junya Watanabe unveiled his SS23 menswear offering and it was an effortlessly cool collection created in the playful spirit of Pop Americana.
With licensed graphics from iconic pop artists including Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Roy Lichtenstein and Keith Haring shape-shifting across the mix-matched garms, it was anything but mundane.
Evoking Wanatabe’s cheerful yet practical sense of humour, the uniform-style garments on display boasted a down-to-earth masculinity that felt ultimately anti-fashion in a postmodern avant-gardist kind of way. Garnishing neo-dandy suiting and casualwear with pragmatic prints and miscellaneous denim accents – ripped apart and reconstructed – the kitsch of the mid-century artistic style seemed to fade into the offbeat modernity of Watanabe.
What’s more, sporting typographical Netflix or Coca Cola ball caps models paraded down the runway enveloped in sleek iconographic shirting with low slung shorts, some of which made in combination with household trademark conglomerates like Honda and the aforementioned.
The collection, co-engineered with the likes of Carhartt, Levi’s, Muehlbauer, Il Bistonte, New Balance, Brooks Brothers and more, was in its essence an optimistic mosaic of demure hues juxtaposing vibrant illustrations, slouchy silhouettes and with all the blasé attitude of a bourgeois art student. With every knit cardigan, tartan blazer and casual crewneck, it was a relaxed patchwork of pop art for the everyday everyman.
Photography courtesy of Junya Wanatabe.
