Junya Watanabe is hardly a top-of-mind designer for a tailored wool coat, the star garment of the fall menswear season, yet he made it the centerpiece of his latest show, a mellow, downbeat parade amid melancholy Miles Davis and café tables.
His were beautifully cut, and sometimes achingly classic, like the camel number with a martingale, or the long, narrow admiral coat in navy with its neat middy collar.
Other tailored coats were merged with sportier outerwear archetypes, so a bomber jacket’s bulging nylon back and splayed, fur-lined hood jazzed up the tweed; the slick, zipped leather front of a Perfecto was set inside herringbone, or the slim channels of Mammut down jackets added contrast and edginess to black wool.
Several models did not lift their eyes from their shiny dress shoes, crestfallen. Top hats, tuxedo pants and the pitch-black set also heightened the formal, somber slant of the collection, one of Watanabe’s most restrained, rendered mostly in black, gray and camel.
He titled it “The Best Dressed,” and said in his show notes that “the theme goes beyond the idea of simply dressing up, representing an update to Junya Watanabe Man’s established style.”
He opened with his trademark patchwork jackets, here given glossy shawl lapels and teamed with white shirts and black ties.
Porkpie hats gave some models the look of private detectives, reporters or jazz musicians of yore, which lifted the mood for a few minutes.
Also quite inventive were his soigné versions of jeans jackets as part of an ongoing collaboration with Levi’s: Expertly tailored and in black, they could take you to a wedding — or a funeral.