Chitose Abe is back home in Tokyo after her Paris haute couture debut. The prolific designer presented a one-off Jean Paul Gaultier collection, the first of that brand’s new partnership projects. She called it an “intimate, more friendly proposal” than the long-running collaboration she has with Nike or her recently announced hookup with Dior Men’s Kim Jones.
Her latest Sacai collections for men and women feature yet another collab, this one with the cult German streetwear label ACRONYM, whose designer Errolson Hugh has been likened by my colleagues at GQ to “some sort of ninja-god-slash astronaut.” ACRONYM specializes in technical outerwear, often in monochrome. Errolson brought the waterproof nylon, Abe brought the bandana prints, buffalo plaids, and rug jacquards.
One throughline of the recent collections has been a sort of elegant functionality; it’s a reaction, no doubt, to the pandemic-time ease—and exercising—we all got used to, and the collective desire to return to a more glamorous way of life. For Abe, the dueling urges yielded a series of camel separates made with an unlikely combination of satin and raincoat fabric. Elsewhere, she paired a cozy buffalo plaid sweater with a buffalo plaid chiffon maxi skirt, and cut a chesterfield coat in white chiffon appliqued in a bandana pattern.
The men’s collection had a more expeditionary spirit, with an emphasis on jackets and vests that could do double duty on the street or at the campsite—an active lifestyle means different things to different people. Abe had the collections shot on the streets of Paris when she was in town for couture, where a well-timed rain shower helped her make her point about utility. Next up: a collab with the weather gods?
