Junya Watanabe

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"Innovative," "cerebral," and "avant-garde" are descriptors routinely applied to Junya Watanabe's technically brilliant creations. A protégé of Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, the Japanese designer experiments with cutting-edge fabrics and inventive tailoring and draping. He tends to explore a single motif each season, deconstructing and then reconstructing one lone concept. Edwardian evening gowns derived from a material resembling puffy nylon sleeping bags will dominate one collection; the next may bring a meditation on the army jacket, reworked into trenches, parkas, and tailcoats or a floaty gray jersey dress of such complex draping that a woman would need an instruction manual just to get into it. The technical wizardry is also on display in Watanabe's unexpected placement of seams and zippers—sometimes backwards, sometimes winding sinuously about a garment. However "challenging" his shows are, though, they are never boring; they give critics something to really sink their teeth into.

After graduating from Bunka Fashion College in 1984, Watanabe began working for Kawakubo. In 1992, she offered him the chance to design his own collection under the Comme des Garçons umbrella. In 2000, Watanabe debuted a men's line, too.

Though he is famous for his cryptic statements to journalists ("Anti. Anarchy. Army," he declared to the audience after one military-inspired show), he has revealed some startling bits about his relationship with Kawakubo over the years. In the more than two decades they have known one another, his mentor has never praised him or offered him design direction. "Sometimes, I would like a little more feedback," he told Vogue in 2006. "Criticism would be better than silence."

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FASHION SHOWS (36)

Fall 2012 Menswear

reviews and complete collections

January 20, 2012 12:00AM

  1. All Seasons

  2. Ready-to-wear

  3. Menswear


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