Renowned fashion designer Junya Watanabe released a lookbook featuring his new designs after he canceled his Paris 2021 men's spring and summer collection "Junya Watanabe Man" over concerns about the novel coronavirus pandemic. While many have turned to livestreaming or hosting a catwalk show as usual, Watanabe's choice allowed him to stand out in a non-digital manner.
In 1984, Watanabe started working at Comme des Garcons, a famed fashion firm with Rei Kawakubo as the president and designer. From 1992, Watanabe took charge of the company's fashion brand for women, using his own name as the brand. Then in 2001, he started putting on collections in Paris of his line for men, "Junya Watanabe Man." He became known for intellectual, casual designs, as well as the occasional collaboration with outdoor fashion brands.
Books are the theme of his latest works. Watanabe revisited his book collection as time spent at home mounted during the pandemic. And it dawned on him: He could incorporate published documents into fashion designs and then use a book as the vehicle to showcase them.
In the end he selected 20 books and other printed items from his personal collection, including a "Dr. Slump" manga by Akira Toriyama, a Playboy magazine from the United States, a cookbook, a picture book and a design book. Watanabe then curated photos, publications and text excerpts from them to print on shirts and jackets. Following that he chose 13 men from different fields of work to use as models, and got acclaimed photographer Keizo Kitajima on board to snap the photos.
"I wanted to convey messages about the jobs and personalities of cool people in Japan, together with my brand's outfits," Watanabe said.
The models included the owner of a popular sushi restaurant wearing a T-shirt printed with the front cover of a cookbook. There's also a car mechanic who, with craftsmanlike pride, dons a jacket with an excerpt from a Playboy magazine printed on the lining.
A bonsai master who believes it is his job to pass on to the next generation art that can live more than 100 years yet have no finished form casually sports a jacket printed with a typographer's original fonts.
"The photo shoots were exciting. I felt an elating vibe of creating things, which was different from a catwalk show. Through the whole process, I also rediscovered the importance of the value that physical items can hold," Watanabe said.
While many brands notably introduced new works via video streaming due to the pandemic, I found the lookbook fun and powerful on par with hi-tech visual media because the reader only needs to turn the page to witness in full the appeal of not only the outfits but also what the models are bringing to the shoot.
The fashion industry is having a hard time and is being pressured to make changes in every aspect.
"I don't want to speak out about what's on my mind right now, " Watanabe said in regard to the future. "But as a designer, I won't make any changes under any cirumstances to convey and design interesting clothes by achieving both creativity and business."
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