For F/W 2025 Japanese Designers Want Us to Look Down
In this season shoes tell stories about villains, war and the wild
Fashion Flash Week 5
Maison MIHARA YASUHIRO│© Ko Nakano
Doublet feat Kids Love Gaite
The ever-creative and always-surprising Doublet makes us wonder this season if we really are in a position to tell who’s a villain or who’s not. “What is this thing called righteousness? Righteous in the eyes of whom?” Well, that's a hard question to answer, but something easier to say is that in our books, this villainous collection has all the odds to become the hero of the story. Aside from the impressive variety of garments that made subtle but very clear references to usually conceived as bad figures or elements—vampire-esque capes and collars, sets that resemble gang uniforms (Tokyo Revengers must have been on the mood board), or even some tweed-inspired looks (evil Chanel?)—the shoes are probably one of the most evil and attractive parts of the collection.
Partnering with Kids Love Gaite, a shoe brand by Shintaro Yamamoto that has gifted us insane designs in collaboration with brands like Comme des Garçons, the new villain shoe is born. With a classic black design where the toe box suddenly opens in two just like a mouth where the zipper becomes little menacing silver teeth and behind them hides a bright red tongue looking inside, it looks like the shoes are smiling at us but in an evil way, warning us to be careful what we step on. Is the villain of this story our shoes or the one who’s wearing them? That is yet to be determined.
Sacai feat Uggs
Neither Sacai nor UGG are strangers to collabs. Mostly in the streetwear realm, both brands know how to combine their aesthetics with someone else's without losing a bit of their personality, so it only makes sense that the second time these two creative forces fuse, the result is one of the most eye-catching footwear proposals of the season. With a show where just by the desertic background you can see the collection will be all about the nature and the elements, Chitose Abe invites us to join the wild side and dress accordingly. For that, the garments stay on the earth-tone palette, and the fabrics and materials tap into the raw, almost primitive aspect to camouflage with the fauna and flora but also with a technical and utilitarian aspect to survive the environment.
Inside this concept, UGG's proposal just fits as it is. We all know how their iconic boots look: fuzzy, cosy, comfortable, and very natural in their design, but when merged with Sacai’s avant-garde approach, the proportions are now altered, becoming larger, taller, and fuzzier. The soft inside now is on display on the outside; the usual minimal design of the boots now adds some buckles at the back, and new designs such as loafers and their own version of mountain merged with skater shoes are presented. All geared up with the new hot collab, we are ready to explore the wilderness.
Maison Mihara Yasuhiro
For this season, Yasuhiro is showing us how we look after getting ready in the morning to go to our office job, with way too few hours of sleep and way too much caffeine in our system. Usual pieces we all own, jeans, trench coats, bomber jackets, shirts, suits, and winter coats, plus the classic accessories like scarves, glasses, hats, and bags, all worn at the same time, everything everywhere all at once. The outfits look like they make sense, but also they don't, with everything put together in a messy, unpolished way, because in this day and age, who has time to correctly tuck a shirt inside the pants?
It's probably this same logic that inspired Mihara Yasuhiro to put the usual and normally handheld bags on our feet. “When your mom asks you to help bring in the groceries, so you wear the first shoes you find?” just like that, but in a luxurious way, because the bag/shoes he proposes are ones that resemble a little bit too much with the expensive, quilted bags we so often see on celebrities and influencers during fashion week. The surrealism of wearing something where it is not supposed to go fits perfectly with the inventiveness and the wit of the Japanese designers we all admire, and it works surprisingly well in theory just as in practice.
Comme des Garçons Homme Plus feat Kids Love Gaite
Just as we mentioned earlier, the creative relationship between these two goes way back, but with every new proposal they release, it feels just as fresh and new as if this was their first venture together. You’ve probably seen pictures of these boots online; they have become quite viral this past week, and it makes sense. A pair of military boots that defy all laws of gravity and extend their toe box in a 90º angle. It's not a common sight, but as quirky or funny as they look, we know everything that comes from CDG hides more behind than what we see on the surface.
Seen on the collection named To Hell With War, the proposal is filled with military-inspired fabrics, silhouettes, and pieces, combined with floral headwear and some bright colours here and there. It's needless to say that a collection called like that in times like this has a stronger meaning to it than just the reinterpretation of some traditional uniform, and the straightforward act of taking a military boot and making it look almost like the hand gesture of “stop” transforms an otherwise silly and funny accessory into a thought piece that speaks Rei’s mind loud and clear.
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