Mikio Sakabe said that for his brand’s 10th anniversary collection, he wanted to take on the challenge of trying something that he had never done before, while also creating something that doesn’t currently exist. Known as an avant-garde designer, the way he decided to achieve this was by turning out a collection of clothes that looked back, not forward, drawing inspiration from the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties.
Sakabe’s show kicked off with a series of men’s wear-inspired looks, including crisp button-up shirts with wide sleeves; long, double-breasted sleeveless jackets, and wide-leg pants. High belted waists were a nod to the Seventies, structured shoulders called to mind the Eighties and the Nineties were represented by shorts worn so low that they had to be held up by both suspenders and the models’ hands. There were also several extremely short skirts — so short that they left very little to the imagination, and were most definitely not made for sitting. Keeping with the men’s wear theme, Sakabe reimagined suit jackets as capes, sometimes leaving out arm holes and cutting them so close to the body that they looked like straitjackets.
But there were plenty of girly pieces as well, from full-skirted dresses in a colorful abstract print or covered in blush pink and yellow fringe, to a pink zip-up calf-hair coat dress. Knits were wide ribbed and slinky, hugging the models’ bodies, and Sakabe threw in a little rock ’n’ roll taste with a glittery vinyl pleated skirt and a vest and long skirt covered in black, blue and white fringe.
Sakabe certainly achieved his goal of doing something different and the challenge paid off with imaginative looks that will nonetheless likely appeal to a wide commercial audience.