The second Chitose Abe’s first search for Jean Paul Gaultier fall 2021 emerged on the runway, it was eminently clear why the French label had chosen the Sacai designer as a collaborator for this season. Abe’s tendency towards stitching collectively blended materials, and even two completely different clothes, to create a brand new piece of clothes blended seamlessly with Gaultier’s iconic codes. Marine stripes? Test. Tartan? Test. Solely this time, Abe had grafted them collectively to create a drop-waist costume with an extended practice. Inevitably, Sacai’s signature touches confirmed by way of as properly—hand-gathered pleats created 3-D textures, and there have been punk-inspired trench coats paired with wide-brim, geometric-shaped hats that appeared straight from Abe’s days reducing her enamel at Comme des Garçons with Rei Kawakubo within the Nineties.
The Sacai x JPG cocktail proved potent—and the blending of brand name emblems was an attention-grabbing problem, in keeping with Abe, who spoke to W journal by way of e-mail following the present.
“I needed the gathering to be a hybrid of Jean Paul’s iconic codes interpreted within the Sacai approach, but in addition reimagined for 2021,” she stated. “I knew from the start that I needed to check with Jean Paul’s archives even earlier than I noticed the precise archives bodily. However seeing them in individual actually allowed me to grasp the methods and particulars of couture.”
Wednesday’s presentation marked Abe’s first flip at designing high fashion—she’s kicking off the Jean Paul Gaultier label’s new strategy to the style, which can contain tapping a brand new visitor designer every season. Her invitation was first introduced in February 2020, proper earlier than Covid-19 swooped down and took maintain of the world. Clearly, the gathering launch was postponed. However Abe says her imaginative and prescient for the gathering remained steadfast all through the pandemic.
“I had a centered concept of the home codes that I needed to discover on this assortment and people concepts by no means modified over time,” she stated. “However the extra time allowed me to additional fine-tune the gathering with Jean Paul’s atelier.”
The designer spent the previous 16 months creating the gathering, which is crammed with patchwork denim (one skirt featured a collection of blue denims hitched collectively by their waistbands), New Age takes on tailoring, and one stunning tasseled knit dress. After she agreed to be the visitor designer again in 2020, Abe made frequent visits to the model’s workshop in Paris, the place she did “see Jean Paul.” However all through the method, they by no means mentioned what Abe labored on. “He gave me full freedom,” she added.
Chitose Abe backstage at Jean Paul Gaultier.
Because of this, every look got here as an entire shock to Gaultier, who sat entrance row on the present (and jumped as much as be a part of Abe on the runway whereas she took a bow). As did the 2 collaborators Abe tapped for the gathering: Los Angeles-based tattoo artist Dr. Woo, who contributed to the sweetness appears to be like, and Pierre Hardy, a detailed buddy of the designer, who did the sneakers.
“Bringing associates and ‘household’ into the combination was vital to me,” stated Abe, who has achieved a slew of collaborations all through her profession—together with one with Nike that’s develop into so well-liked, she launched a brand new version of the shoe referred to as the “Vaporwaffle” as a part of the JPG assortment. “I requested Dr. Woo to re-create my interpretation of a tattoo sample for a second-skin tulle underneath piece in addition to for the embroidery and prints. Hardy created sneakers impressed by the Gaultier home corsets.”
Corsets factored closely into the inspiration for Abe’s reinterpretation of Jean Paul Gaultier. She stated she was particularly taken by the one Madonna wore on her Blond Ambition tour—and selected so as to add riffs on the piece to a number of appears to be like in her personal assortment. Gaultier’s historical past dressing celebrities popped up many times on the runway, too—Abe created a tackle Björk’s fall 1994 runway look by including a hat and boots to a fur-trimmed coat with “JPG” emblazoned throughout the entrance in purple.
When scrutinized at face worth, the Jean Paul Gaultier and Sacai manufacturers have little or no in widespread. Abe placed on her first Sacai runway present in 2012; Gaultier arrange store in 1976. Abe’s first items have been three knit designs she made out of ten balls of yarn from her residence in Japan, whereas Gaultier’s premiere prêt-à-porter assortment confirmed on a packed runway. However in keeping with Abe, the 2 designers’ ethos aligned much more seamlessly than their model codes. They share in widespread a need to do issues in another way, she stated, and have each primarily based their companies upon pondering of how to design in opposition to preconceived notions of what’s acceptable in vogue. And when it got here to creating a line for JPG, Abe “completely” had this similar mindset.
“That could be one of many causes I repurposed Jean Paul’s nickname, ‘Enfant Horrible,’” she stated, referencing a t-shirt she had printed with these two phrases, and which she wore throughout the present this week. “However pluralized it to ‘Enfants Terribles.’”
