Imagine if the virtual closet in Clueless went rogue. Instead of prepping just another matchy-matchy ensemble for Cher, its function was straight out of sartorial science fiction: create an entirely new outfit from an encyclopedic wardrobe.
There’s something freeing about this future of Franken-fashion, which Japanese label KOLOR offered a peek into at its recent Fall-Winter 2023 show. Playing off of designer Junichi Abe’s penchant for mutating garments via combined silhouettes, the collection joined various odds and ends once more, unleashed from mad scientist Abe’s lab directly onto the runway.
KOLOR kicked things off with a royal purple blazer that flaunted contrasting lapels, while on a checked brown bomber, one side stretched further than the other. Abe doubled down on hybrids, such as a charcoal greatcoat fused with a plaid suit jacket; beneath, another rapturous mismatch through a color-blocked windbreaker up top and a black sweatshirt down low.
Alongside all the asymmetry (in one female look, half a waistline dropped lower than its opposite side) was a preference for transparency. What appeared to be the fabric equivalent of trompe l’oeil was a standout, where the top quadrant of a trouser was sewn onto a jacket’s flank, as if giving us a peek of what the model wore beneath. A prompt to question the reasons behind style conventions, it seemed.
It urged one to wonder: where does one garment end and another begin? And who has the authority to set such rules anyway?
