CMMN SWDN SS20. Photo by Ada Yang.
As the men’s portion of Paris Fashion Week draws to a close, rants, raves and reviews come pouring in from media around the world. For our part, Schön! has gone backstage with photographer Ada Yang to bring you the most exciting looks of the week, including shows from White Mountaineering, CMMN SWDN, Christian Dada and more.
White Mountaineering kicks off our backstage coverage with an eclectic mix of athleisure streetwear. Yosuke Aizawa, the Tokyo-based designer behind the brand, explained that his pieces carry a “discord ambience,” which in this collection means mashing up elements of outerwear and activewear with bold patterns and the occasional odd silhouette – all rounded out with complexly layered White Mountaineering trainers.
Up next is CMMN SWDN. CMMN SWDN stemmed from an experience husband-and-wife team Emma and Saif Bakir had while setting up Kanye West’s Paris studio. Since then, the duo has developed the brand out of Malmö — incorporating Swedish design aesthetics with elements from their Iraqi heritage and beyond. These influences are in full force for this collection, which uses Middle Eastern tiling patterns and layered leaf elements alongside boxy outerwear and knitted devoré pieces.
Continuing on, Japanese brand Christian Dada wowed us with, in lead designer Masanori Morikawa’s own words, “a very personal collection.” Ahead of the brand’s tenth anniversary next year, Morikawa saw fit to return to his roots to study for this collection. On this journey, he returned to his place of birth, a small Japanese island called Shikoku. Buddhist temple imagery and the island’s natural beauty weave their way through this collection, mixing traditional Japanese attire with technical clothing.
While label WOOYOUNGMI may be based in South Korea, they too looked to Japan for inspiration for their SS20 collection. We last took you backstage for WOOYOUNGMI’s autumn/winter 2019 collection, which drew heavily from both modern streetwear and accessories from the 1920s. This time, WOOYOUNGMI has opted to pull from Japanese pop culture of the 70s, when an economic boom encouraged a wave of American products to flow into the country. Palm tree motifs land on numerous pieces; others explode with vibrant colour. Feelings of urbanity exist throughout, tied together with accessories by Portrait Report.
To finish our coverage of Paris Fashion Week Men’s, we’re looking at the bright and sporty SS20 collection from Li Ning. Inspired by one of China’s most popular sports – ping pong – the collection features sports attire with an aesthetic lifted from the classic ping pong polo. The pieces on offer are ultralightweight and feature everything from shirts to shorts to trousers and more. The show also saw the debut of a sneaker collaboration with Random Identities, the label headed by designer Stefano Pilati.
For more information about Paris Fashion Week Men’s, click here.
photos. Ada Yang
words. Braden Bjella
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