Last night as guests walked into the Espace Niemeyer—the historic headquarters of the French communist party, designed and built by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, now an events space—each was handed a silver bag with a simple instruction: Please open before the show.
In a letter inside each bag, Junichi Abe announced his stepping down from the role as lead designer at Kolor, the label he founded 20 years ago in 2005. “This will be a special moment for me, because it will be my last show as Kolor head designer,” he wrote. “Even after this season, I’ll stay to support Kolor from the inside. Thank you for all these years, and I hope we will have your continued support for Kolor.”
With his unique eye for precision and an advanced technical expertise when it comes to abstracting and restructuring garments, plus a long-running partnership with Adidas, Abe made Kolor one of Japan’s most notable fashion exports founded in the 21st century. His runway shows in Paris, where Kolor shows its collections on the menswear calendar, consistently feature a robust attendance from fashion cognoscenti including both local and other Western editors and buyers. Abe has already selected a successor, who the brand will announce soon.
The show was classic Abe with a parade of unexpected but pleasing to look at reconfigurations. “Two different times co-existing in the one garment,” is how Abe succinctly described this season’s experiments. He placed corsets over pea coats and, more effectively, used old-world jewelry as accents on some fantastic shearling jackets. Where Abe shows his technical prowess continues to be in his tailoring: He removed the collar stands from some jackets but kept their inner interfacings exposed and connected to slim lapels; on others he placed vertical darts extending from the collarbone and stylized the lapels and collars down to offer what felt like an entirely new silhouette. Abe has always had a knack for presenting timeless ideas in a contemporary way. His shoes at Kolor will be hard to fill.
