White Mountaineering Men’s Spring 2024
For White Mountaineering designer Yosuke Aizawa, two timelines collided in his spring collection: the ’80s of his youth and the here-and-now.
Although both carried great promise for the future, “the 1980s [had] such a great design generation. Now, it’s so difficult [because it’s] all about marketing, merchandising [rather] than design,” said the Tokyo-based designer.
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His solution? To combine the past and the future.
Opening the show were the all-black looks that embodied the kind of streamlined, forward-looking designs he feels are the way forward, using the latest in performance textiles for, say, breathable and lightweight summer outerwear.
Deceptively simple at first glance, they were rife with catchy details, like sleeves that could unzip at the elbow, or pockets cleverly concealed in seams, and made use of Aizawa’s knack for layers.
Aizawa went on to dress these designs in “memories,” also a tongue-in-cheek way of alluding to how designers tend to source their inspirations by collecting images. Here they ran from abstract interpretations of his own photographs that looked part pixel art, part digital camouflage, to landscapes but also vintage hues and motifs, like a bokeh “paisley” print.
Highlights included relaxed yet tailored slacks; a drop-shouldered blazer that showed his eye for tailoring; a blouson with a tone-on-tone check that hid multiple vents; another with multiple square pockets that were camouflaged by a bottle-green check motif, and a T-shirt made of curvilinear strips of stripes. Props, too, for a sandal inspired by the traditional Japanese geta but given the pneumatic-looking sole of a sneaker.
It was a breezy lineup that managed to look at once lived-in and something you’ll want to live in come next summer.
Launch Gallery: White Mountaineering Men's Spring 2024
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