By Miles Socha
Plain surfaces are overrated, Junya Watanabe seemed to say with his spring men’s collection, shown in a concrete parking garage plastered with colorful graffiti and worn by a cast of heavily tattooed models, to which the designer added more ink on limbs, faces and necks.
“Retro gangsters” was the look he was after, drawing some inspiration from the farcical movie “Black Cat, White Cat.” The show had a jazzy vibe heightened by the pork pie hats and the model’s swagger.
The news this season was busy botanical prints for breezy camp shirts and Bermudas, and poster art stenciled onto snazzy alterna-suits, many with shorts in lieu of pants. Watanabe also went big for faux and real leather for peacoats, blazers and padded biker-jacket sleeves grafted onto checkered tailoring. Occasionally, Watanabe just added a zippered cuff to toughen up the tailoring.
The designer once again used leather elbow patches and fabric patchworks on shirt- and jeans-style jackets, making them feel a bit déjà vu.
