“We wanted to bring our friends on board to the wild side with us: we’re trying to walk on the wild side together. And that is the starting point of the collection.” So said Chitose Abe through her translator after this morning’s show. It was the first I can recall since in-its-stride Mulberry’s fall 2012 collection to be so influenced by Maurice Sendak’s wonderful Where The Wild Things Are: here, as befitting the times, there was much less real fur.

The shaggy and authentically beastly pelts that were wreathed around a utility-touched olive suit, a green knit blouson, an aran knit scarf, and which peeked through sleeves across the collection were what the release called ‘knit fur.’ Elsewhere faux fur hemmed wide pocketed skirts and recalibrated duffle jackets. There was a brief series of pieces featuring Sendak’s work, including the embrace of Ira and Max.

The collaborators were Carhartt WIP (third season), Ugg (second season), and the Limoges-founded heritage French footwear manufacturer JM Weston. The long Carhartt section featured plenty of freshly cooked blends that filtered the ubiquitous workwear brand’s codes through Abe’s highly worked process. Ugg provided loafers, thigh highs, and fleece-faced mid-length boots that had a satisfyingly Sendak aspect. The Westons, a cow print double sole derby, were saved for the excellent and otherwise all-Sacai eveningwear section at the climax.

There were a lot of contrasting phases and on-purpose genre bending in a show that was decorated with desert landscapes and went heavy on midwinter technical gear. Gorpcore bundles of carabiner and beaded chain-connected water bottles, microbags and other sundries were peppered with Sacai stickers and sometimes incorporated into the landscape of multifunction military style backpacks. Check suiting overlapped into check technical wear. Carpet patterned technical pieces bled into pleated silk skirting.

A super-voluminous side pocket on pants was the fil rouge from that opening olive suit to the roomy womenswear evening pants in look 66, its effect mirrored by the free hanging sections of hem on some skirts. This collection was an on-purpose mishmash: the precision of the design was self-evident.