"These designs are for both those who are ready to take a step forward and those who aren't," said Ganryu Fumito, designer of GANRYU, the men's brand of Comme des Garçons, about this season's collection. GANRYU, whose brand concept is "casual wear for looking forward," unveiled its 2016 Spring/Summer collection at a runway show on July 28th. As with the previous season, the venue was IDOL in Aoyama. The show began with extremely basic colors, without any flashy colors or patterns. The first look was a black set made of shiny nylon taffeta, similar to that used for windbreakers. Plain colors continued for a while, then stripes and polka dots were added to the innerwear. Towards the end, the look took on a more vibrant tone with the inclusion of primary colors like red, green, blue, and yellow. Nine looks for women were also presented on the runway, along with the men's. The theme for women's was "extra casual." The collection is casual beyond casual, with a traditionally formal collarless jacket crafted in denim. After the show, when I asked about the men's theme, the answer was "alternative suiting." What was the intention behind the word "alternative"? We spoke to designer Maruryu Fumito, who had just unveiled his collection at a runway show, about the thoughts he expressed through his collection. (Full text of Maruryu's interview follows.) It's simply the result of expressing the clothes I want to wear. The brand concept is "casual wear for looking forward," and the way of expression that suits each era is equal to the style I want to wear. It's difficult to summarize the entire collection, but primarily, I wanted to try on a "perfect suit style." I believe that not only myself, but the general public as well, are fed up with the stifling atmosphere of today's world.
That being said, even if you simply make something interesting and say, "Please wear it," it's not like people will simply wear it. It's not that simple.
When I look at designs out there, I sometimes think, "It's interesting, but I wonder if it's really good enough as clothing?" At Ganryu, we have no intention of doing that. On the other hand, as a designer, I feel like "we have to do something about this boring world." I think everyone feels the same way.
In a word, I think normcore is a symbol of something closed off. We need interesting things, but something that suddenly changes completely is unlikely to be accepted. I think everything changes like a gradient. Our approach was to consider how Ganryu could fill the gradation between normcore and fun. And that's how the "Alternative Suit" was born.
We couldn't afford not to take a step forward, but at the same time, we're not amateurs, so we couldn't ignore business. With that in mind, we aimed to incorporate conservative elements that, even if we play around a little, would be easy to incorporate into our wardrobes. In that sense, a "suit" was necessary this time.
The literal translation of "alternative suit" is "unconventional suit" or "a suit in a way." For example, I wanted to visually convey the joy of unconventional clothing by having multiple models swap jackets during the show. In my case, I think of a set as a suit. Originally, there were no matching bottoms, so for a top that wouldn't normally be considered a set, I made the bottoms out of the same fabric, or even added a shirt as an ensemble, or made it into a three-piece suit. I was conscious of designing something that was missing.
Although I happened to use it as the finale of the show, the design of this collection actually began with "primary colors." It all started with me wanting to wear colorful jackets. So how could I express a colorful set in a design that makes sense? I don't intend to explain everything about the design in words, but that's how I came up with the idea.
I hope that this collection will give you a sense of the "alternative suit" I came up with after much trial and error.
