Looks Fashion News

The last day of PFW, found CFCL’s Yusuke Takahashi in a characteristically philosophical mood. This season’s conceptual inspiration was Joseph Beuys, whose idea that art can reshape society dovetails with the designer’s worldview. “He combined social issues with his aesthetic sense,” Takahashi observed backstage at the Palais de Tokyo. “It got me thinking about how clothing, the garment, expounds the philosophy of its makers.”

This outing, entitled “Knit-Ware: Sculpture,” framed CFCL’s signature pieces as social sculptures, a medium connecting the individual to society writ large. The show was set to a live duo’s spoken-word performance by Ben Vida, layered with electronic sound. One line: “Timelines converge to become interlacing possibilities […] text to textile, code unknown.”

The show opened with voluminous coats in the brand’s TW Inlay fabrication, a triple-layer structure blending non-mulesing New Zealand wool with Inner Mongolian cashmere, and recycled polyester, a combination that brought substance and drape not before seen at CFCL. Seamless 3D knits looked fluid, light and versatile. Pops of color came in lilac, poppy red, burgundy, chestnut brown, purple and light blue. But where this collection really shone, literally, was in eveningwear. For the first time, the studio printed black or white knitwear with silver foil mimicking an oak bark motif, an homage to Beuys’s 7000 Oaks land art project.

Fringe elements, though weighty, brought an element of excitement—not to mention glamour—to CFCL’s sculptural knits. It was, Takahashi said, “a combination of knitwear programming and human hands.” On one long black dress, some 1,265 individual tassels had been hand-threaded through punched holes. A short silver bustier dress swished sassily. Other examples mixed fringed tassels with sparkly elastic tabs, as on a tank dress with an embellished skirt, shown on the runway with a black blazer. That and a few other iterations, in black and silver, looked dressy yet relaxed and modern. Some of the shoes, too, featured transparent knit mesh fabrications. Meanwhile, a second collaboration with Veja made its debut here. With this lineup, a new headquarters in Tokyo and B Corp certification that Takahashi reported is the highest score of any Japanese company, CFCL seems eager to take its offerings to the next level.