Sneakerheads: that very same Nike collaboration is happening again and out autumn; this time it’s grey and white. Some had fur on. The spring version, in red and green, sold out. Well, will sell out when it finally drops, the hype is electric. But that’s Sacai.
Cut, patch and re-sew; maybe with a zip: it’s the in-house mantra of Sacai designer Chitose Abe. She and her studio, based in Tokyo, use this practice, honing it, developing it and applying it to new garments every season. Of all the Menswear designers showing this week in Paris, Abe’s Sacai – forgive me – has the vibe. Meaning, she plugs into that all-important fashion ether: the how and what and next of men’s fashion. It’s great! Was she hanging around London’s Soho recently? She was certainly in town: the t-shirts with ‘Bar Italia London’ printed on the front. The “sacaification” of streetwear archetypes generates retail gold. The puffa jacket got the treatment just. The shoes and sneakers too: need those. And those ear buds held on some kind of wire support, which models wore round their necks, the wire covered in coloured beads, we’re all going to want those. A new product category right there: jewellery-tech.
Photography by Jason Lloyd- Evans.
