BEAUTY: Clothing--IM (Issey Miyake)

IM as it is now known is the continuation of the brand started by legendary Japanese designer Issey Miyake in 1970. Miyake (previously here), who died in 2022, was highly influential in clothing design and I honestly don't think we would have the likes of Rick Owens or Boris Bidjan Saberi or Damir Doma or Craig Green or even Haider Ackermann without him. The menswear division is now headed by a trio of designers--Sen Kawahara, Yuki Itakura and Nobutaka Kobayashi--who created a Spring Summer '27 show at Paris Fashion Week called "In Praise of Bamboo Shadows."

With references to a 1933 essay about Japanese aesthetics by Jun’Ichiro Tanizaki, the cultural and material significance of bamboo, and the ancient Japanese tale of Princess Kaguya who was discovered inside a bamboo stalk as a child but grows up to return to the night sky, this enchanting collection highlights the best of Miyake silhouettes and cuts. The first oversized coat is lovely, showing actual shadows of bamboo stalks on a white ground. And when not a literal presentation in the form of a hat or chest piece or shoes or the motif of woven bamboo, it showed up in the thread blend of garments, offering a silky texture and flowing appearance! The gradual shift to bamboo greens is so pleasing...

https://us.isseymiyake.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Songzio

Jay Songzio has called his creative perspective "oriental futurism" but he has also shown a penchant for mining silhouettes of times and centuries past. He has shown collections of garments that look as if they are based on Medieval and ancient Japanese armor. He blends east and west quite well. But for this Spring Summer '27 show at Paris Fashion Week, the armor has been softened, shaped into layers of ease with sheer materials. Quite the opposite of armor. But somehow he manages to retain an echo of the original purpose...

When the warrior takes off his battle gear, there is repose beneath. I love the way these garments drape, puddle, flow. The skirts in Looks 12 and 20 that zip open are magnificent. I don't think I have seen a loose trouser better cut than the ones in Looks 10, 15, and 16. Yet Songzio's classic Roman gladiator sandals remain (click a pic to ogle). And the browns, mustards, and greens are a beautiful counterpoint to his often black and white palette. Stunning.

https://en.songzio.com/

BEAUTY: Set Design--Louis Vuitton

And here we are starting Paris Fashion Week and what a way to make a splash .. literally. For their Spring Summer '27 surfer-inspired collection (which I am not showing because, frankly, it is not that motivating to me), Louis Vuitton created a jaw-dropping set of an enormous breaking wave, consisting of real water cascading down a structure into two pools. The runway and showspace floor was completely covered in soft sand. Wow...

https://us.louisvuitton.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Shinyakozuka

Shinya Kozuka, who was the guest designer at Pitti Uomo this past winter, has been at it with his eponymously named menswear line since he graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2013. But this Spring Summer '27 collection entitled "watercolor path" marks his official debut on the Milan menswear schedule. And the collection has a curious impact ... like a haiku, it is streamlined and subtle but packed with poetic meaning.

Apparently, Kozuka often forgets his glasses at home and navigates his Tokyo neighborhood in a blur. From this experience came the idea of making the collection feel as if it exists in a haze. In his show notes, he said," There is something nice about being out of focus. Not everything needs to be perfectly clear. Not everything needs to be sharply defined. I think there is something important about repetition." The motif that flew into frame was birds in a beautiful spectrum of greens and blues. For the narrative, witness the design on a sweater in Look 18 that depicts a lone figure walking hrough a cityscape, casting a shadow onto a nearby flying bird.

The hand-made, hand-painted aspect of the collection is what makes it feel like a haiku ... something from the mind of an artist, from the hand of the maker. Looks 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 13 are literally caked with paint. Many pieces are made from sheer material ... I love the jumpsuit in Look 6. And one tunic poignantly and simply announces, "homecoming." Like a haiku, we glean a bigger sense of  meaning from each of the lines and garments in this pensive collection.

https://shinyakozuka.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Giorgio Armani

It was a sad day last September when we learned of the death of a legend, Giorgio Armani. He had just celebrated his 91st birthday in July but had been ill in hospital for a bit. While it is not a surprise when someone of an advanced age dies (a dear friend of mine who checked out at 92 a couple of years ago asked me a few days before she died, "How much longer do I think I'm going to live?"), it is still a loss. But Sig. Armani lived a full life of creativity and left behind a legacy of true beauty.

It is impossible to exaggerate his achievements and contribution to culture, to design (not only of clothing, but of home furnishings and architecture), and to fashion history during his fifty year career. Along with names who changed silhouettes and shapes and ushered in new cuts and styles and materials, Armani takes his place in the pantheon. He deconstructed the men's suit in the 80s, turning it into something soft and sensual, something sexy and flowing, without altering the basic concept of what it was. He removed layers of felting inside suits, making them relaxed and able to behave like thin silk. Just take a look at the iconic clothing from the film "American Gigolo" and you will see what I mean. It was soft and casual with a sense of effortless power. This revolution rippled out into the industry and we see its waves even now: designers still grapple with ways to make suiting less stiff, to make clothing more luxe without being precious, and to make pieces with more innate ease without being sloppy. In short, to make clothes more Armani. But no one does Armani like Armani. Clean lined and impeccably tailored, Armani's sensibility is about luxe fabrics and the way a garment hangs and drapes on the body (of both men and women). But there is something else that I really respond to in each Armani collection and that is a vague sense, a shadow, an echo of historical fashion. The way a jacket or coat is cut or its stance, the inclusion of waistcoats, belted outerwear, loose cut and high waisted trousers...it all reminds me of...what, the 1920s and 30s? The 1880s and 1890s? The 1940s and 50s? Yes to all of it.

So this Spring Summer '27 collection shown at Milano Moda Uomo, is the second to exist without any direct input from the master himself. Armani's partner in business and in life, Leo Dell'Orco (the two had worked together for nearly forty-five years, and became romantic partners after the death of Armani's first love, Sergio Galeotti). He is certainly carrying on the DNA of the house with gorgeous, loose-fitting and flowing trousers but this collection seemed to be about the cuts of jackets and the addition of denim...and lots of it, or at least a lot in the Armani-verse. But this is a denim that appears to be the typical woven canvas structure but which actually looks and feels more like shantung silk ... of course. In his show notes, Dell-Orco said, "I envisioned a collection that is very Armani: fluid lines, this time closer to the body, and fabrics with a lived-in appearance—vibrant, sun-scorched, and full of character. I believe that in menswear it is essential to return to researching and innovating materials."

As for the jackets, we see a newcomer to Armani... a roomier version of a classic academic's jacket, longer and looser than the traditional version (seen in Looks 5, 11, 12, 15, 17). And the collection ended with a great section of eveningwear, stripped down to its essential silhouette, clean, unencumbered ... and featuring lapel pins of the zodiac symbols for Scorpio and Cancer, Dell-Orco's and Armani's signs respectively. A touching gesture of love across the gap...

https://www.armani.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Thom Browne

Thom Browne. Milano Moda Uomo. Spring Summer 2027.

This absolutely delightful collection using Browne's classic vocabulary sprung up from the idea of gardens and all the life that occupies one: dragonflies, bees (aside from beekeeper hats, we see literal representations of bees but also garments with a honeycomb motif), butterflies (and designs of their wings arching across jackets), grasshoppers, and ants (click on Look #16 to see some tiny ants on the short red sweater vest). Stalks of blooming lilies and the lush silhouettes of peonies appear. And the fairytale of The Princess and The Frog weaves its way in, but according to Browne, this time it is The Prince and The Frog...lily pads on a pond, tiny embroidered frogs on neck ties, and Browne himself taking a bow in a giant frog head!

All this on light, breezy coats along with skirts both kilt-like and pencil, in spring-y pastel deliciousness. And I think this is the first time Browne has sent jeans down a runway (see Look #16 again ). But the most fun: the black rain slicker and the beautiful white bridal look at the end of the show! Watch the video below.

https://www.thombrowne.com/