"No hunting, no fishing, no firearms," read the warning on Junya Watanabe's invitation. "without written permission," continued the fine print, alongside an image of the kind of noble animal people like Sarah Palin will always be happy to bring down with their guns. Japanese designers tend to shy away from overt political comment, but it was tempting to see some in the way Junya took the visual codes of the hunter—the all-weather fabrics, the quilting, the camo, significant details like shooting patches—and sliced and diced them, literally turning them inside out. Of course, this was also his trick last season—jacket and vest reversing to coat and vice versa. And his collaborators were the same: Baracuta, Brooks Brothers, Levi's, Gloverall.
The two-in-one effect has been noted on a number of catwalks this season (more bang for your shriveling buck), but Junya has perfected the illusion to a most ingenious degree. Harringtons and puffers and duffels have so much bulk, yet there was none visible in their doubling up. The slenderness of Junya's models remained uncompromised by their invisible layers, perhaps because they were collaged with such mathematical precision. By the way, that cues a distinctive feature of Watanabe's shows. Unlike elsewhere, there is no attempt at a sense of momentum building toward a finale. His show is simply a bunch of blokes shambling back and forward (this time around to the whiskey tones of Tom Waits). It's a lot like life.
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