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Akira Resort 2018
Credit: Getty Images
Thanks to the most recent celeb-studded Met Gala and its exhibition championing design icon Rei Kawakubo, a whole new generation of cool kids have been exposed to Japanese directional design and its key place in the fashion world.
But getting edgy millennials to swap their Ksubi and Gucci to wear the likes of Comme des Garcon, Yohji Yamamoto or Junya Watanabe every day is a whole other matter. Kyoto-born Akira Isogawa, however, might have just bridged the gap between the two at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia.
While Sydney-based designer Akira has been an Aussie resident for more than half his life (Isogawa immigrated to Sydney, where he studied fashion, at age 22 in 1986), his designs have always reflected his Japanese heritage and the conceptual design scene it’s famous for, with his personal signature being elegant flowing, layered fabrics and artistic detailing.
That didn’t change with his Resort 2018 collection, titled Duality, but what was starkly different was its fresh, wearable, sporty twist. In what was, in multiple critics’ opinions, the coolest casting and styling of the week, conventional male and female fashion models walked alongside others covered in tattoos and/or piercings, radical long hair slicked (for both guys and girls), all in a modern way that was relevant, unforced and distinctly anti-hipster. (Unlike several other tabloid-drawing shows of the week.)
Akira Resort 2018
Credit: Getty Images
“It felt like really good street casting, like something more out of ID Magazine, which I don’t think we’ve seen from Akira before,” remarked GRAZIA’s Fashion Director Aileen Marr of the show, which was styled by Kelvin Harries.
“Everybody was a bit individual, even as far as having guys wear earrings, buzzing and undercutting their hair, and it’s very hard to get models to do that just for one show. Even the guy with the crazy Ned Kelly beard was striking. It puts it up there with something like a Thom Browne show which you’d seen in New York.”
Akira Resort 2018
Credit: Getty Images
Models literally bounced down the runway in Nike Air Vapor Max trainers, sports socks with retro stripes pulled up to cover their calves, and while the show was clearly driven by the male models wearing gender neutral clothes with a palpable street vibe, the use of masculinity even for the women’s looks unified the collection and made it just as relevant for womenswear buyers.
Marr’s favourite look? “I loved the red and the way it was mixed with the sheer raincoat over the top that turned it into an apricot with the Akira logo across the front – very cool. It’s nice he tried to blend himself more but didn’t have the attitude he was ‘too above’ street fashion.” [See image below]
GRAZIA Fashion Director Aileen Marr’s favourite Akira Resort 2018 look
Credit: Getty Images
“It was still very art focused – I don’t think Akira lost that, he still had all of his detailing, the whimsical petalling of the shoulders and all that, but he stripped it back and made it just cooler,” she said. “Sometimes his stuff is so beautiful but so grandeur, you think it belongs in an opera or museum rather than being something you’d wear every day. But that show was styled so you could wear it any time.”
View the full Akira Resort 2018 collection here.
