Pharrell Williams, a big yellow Louis Vuitton bag plopped on his lap, took in Junya Watanabe’s spring 2024 men’s show on Friday morning in Paris, saying he wouldn’t miss it. “He’s the best,” he added, staring out from the tiny, egg-shaped lenses of his diamond-rimmed sunglasses.
It was an eye-opening show with punk energy, and a DIY ethos as Watanabe scrambled Chanel jackets into sleeveless coats and blazers, whorled trenchcoat belts into unusual new trenchcoats, and patched jeans jackets into grand coats that resembled 18th-century court dress one minute, manga superheroes the next.
Models with jutting finger-in-light-socket hairstyles strolled out one by one, and held your attention as you took in the invention and imagination it took to realize each outfit.
Statement outerwear headlined the show, with biker and jeans jackets deconstructed into grand and flaring great coats. Here were ideas and similar garments seen on Watanabe’s women’s runway, which he considered his “main collaboration” this season.
“The idea and the way of my approach in creation of Junya Watanabe is completely different to Man, so they are different brands to me. I wanted to incorporate clothes like Junya Watanabe into Man,” he explained in press notes distributed after the show.
The femininity of the flaring silhouettes was partially tamed by big sewage-worker pants and boots, and the don’t-mess-with-me glares of the models.
Watanabe continues to collaborate with the workwear and utility brands he treasures, including Levi’s, Carhartt and Filson, adding C.P Company and Lousy Livin to the mix this season. It was interesting to watch him speak a new fashion language with the same vocabulary.