Junya Watanabe
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"Innovative," "cerebral," and "avant-garde" are descriptors routinely applied to Junya Watanabe's technically brilliant creations. A protégé of Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, the Japanese designer experiments with cutting-edge fabrics and inventive tailoring and draping. He tends to explore a single motif each season, deconstructing and then reconstructing one lone concept. Edwardian evening gowns derived from a material resembling puffy nylon sleeping bags will dominate one collection; the next may bring a meditation on the army jacket, reworked into trenches, parkas, and tailcoats or a floaty gray jersey dress of such complex draping that a woman would need an instruction manual just to get into it. The technical wizardry is also on display in Watanabe's unexpected placement of seams and zippers—sometimes backwards, sometimes winding sinuously about a garment. However "challenging" his shows are, though, they are never boring; they give critics something to really sink their teeth into.
After graduating from Bunka Fashion College in 1984, Watanabe began working for Kawakubo. In 1992, she offered him the chance to design his own collection under the Comme des Garçons umbrella. In 2000, Watanabe debuted a men's line, too.
Though he is famous for his cryptic statements to journalists ("Anti. Anarchy. Army," he declared to the audience after one military-inspired show), he has revealed some startling bits about his relationship with Kawakubo over the years. In the more than two decades they have known one another, his mentor has never praised him or offered him design direction. "Sometimes, I would like a little more feedback," he told Vogue in 2006. "Criticism would be better than silence."
FASHION SHOWS (30)
All Seasons
Ready-to-wear
Menswear
- Spring 2011 RTW
- Spring 2011 Menswear
- Fall 2010 RTW
- Fall 2010 Menswear
- Spring 2010 RTW
- Fall 2009 RTW
- Spring 2009 RTW
- Spring 2009 Menswear
- Fall 2008 RTW
- Fall 2008 Menswear
- Spring 2008 RTW
- Spring 2008 Menswear
- Fall 2007 RTW
- Fall 2007 Menswear
- Spring 2007 RTW
- Spring 2007 Menswear
- Fall 2006 RTW
- Fall 2006 Menswear
- Spring 2006 RTW
- Spring 2006 Menswear
- Fall 2005 RTW
- Fall 2005 Menswear
- Spring 2005 RTW
- Spring 2005 Menswear
- Fall 2004 RTW
- Spring 2004 RTW
- Fall 2003 RTW
- Spring 2003 RTW
- Fall 2002 RTW
- Spring 2000 RTW
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