Satoshi Kuwata, the founder of the label Setchu and winner of this year’s LVMH Prize, is a Japanese designer with charm and drive to spare. He doesn’t lack eccentricity either. His passion is fishing, and he usually does it dressed to the nines in a suit. “Why not?” he asked.
His favorite fishing destination is Gabon, Africa. “Getting there is a day job,” he joked at a preview of his spring collection. “You change the flight three times, take a car drive for three hours, then a boat for four hours. You cannot take a big suitcase with you. But I like to look dapper like Gustav von Aschenbach, the lead character of Visconti’s Death in Venice who traveled with 20 trunks. No wheels.”
Because tweed suits aren’t acclimatized to Gabon’s temperatures, he designed what he calls an origami tuxedo, a double-breasted blazer impeccably cut following the sartorial rules he learned working on Savile Row at H.Huntsman & Sons. The fastidious Kuwata had it made in a weightless, high-quality Italian fabric treated to keep permanent front creases; even if you’re in a remote region of Gabon, New Zealand, Mongolia, or Senegal (all fishing destinations he has traveled to) and an ironing board isn’t immediately at hand, the jacket will still look immaculate. Functional but swanky, it’s apparently the best fishing tuxedo ever made.
Born in Kyoto, Kuwata has traveled extensively. Between trips to the four corners of the world, he has lived in London, Paris, and New York, and he’s now based in Milan, where he launched his first collection in February 2021. Setchu in Japanese means ‘compromise’ or ‘fusion of different cultures’. It’s a word coined in the 19th century, when Japan opened its borders to the West after being isolated for almost 200 years. “It’s like if the pandemic lasted not two years but 200 years,” said Kawata. “When the Japanese woke up, they panicked, but in the end they found a way to adjust to Western culture, integrating it into their own. Compromise is not a bad word — it’s a way of coexisting.”
There are three codes Kuwata has established for Setchu the label. One: the elegant Japanese culture of minimalism and timeless garments. Two: the functionality that comes from his fishing obsession (“I don’t want to have style boundaries between city life and outdoor life”). Three: his unique Savile Row tailoring background. “But the reason I’m in Italy is because it’s the best country to make a beautiful garment,” he stated.
At the presentation of his spring collection, held at Fondazione Sozzani, genderless garments were laid flat on traditional tatamis, which made you appreciate the clever way Kuwata approaches pattern-making, cut, and construction. His garments mutate via inventive fastening, draping, and folding details. Zippers can transform a fine wool sweater into a protective cape; clean-cut panels can be assembled into a lean tunic, and then disassembled and combined into various shapes or lengths. They look like beautiful living origami. “The patterns are simple, like Vionnet,” he explained. “What I do goes back to what we can do with our hands and brain. My message is that the artisanal value embodied into each garment is extremely high. My work isn’t about AI.”
You can buy a new Setchu dress that fuses into an old one, becoming a mutation of a previous incarnation. Kuwata doesn’t believe in the frantic rhythm of fashion shows, nor in designing a new collection every season. “My dresses are like a family of iPhones—One, Two, Three. I update them little by little.”
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