THE CONTROLLED ANARCHY OF JUN TAKAHASHI

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

“Jun is the only designer from the Ura-Hara scene who knows that true creation comes from and with pain,” Hirakawa

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TOKYO – The offices of Undercover, the cult Japanese fashion brand, are located in the maze of the Upper Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. Undercover occupies the entire building, whose front is a repurposed shipping container that floats above ground, a window cut into its front end. On a recent visit in March, just after the end of Tokyo Fashion Week, I found the brand’s operations spilling out in front of the office, where boxes bearing the Undercover logo lay on the ground, its signature motorcycle jackets that retail for thousands of dollars spilling out of them. A middle-aged man with long silver hair wearing a coach’s jacket that said “Undercover Records” on the back milled around the boxes.

Revisit the Undercover x Evangelion Collection

Fashion

The time has finally come for the much awaited Undercover x Evangelion collection to drop in stores, and we decided to revisit the exclusive interview Jun Takahashi kindly gave to us surrounding this collection after the March show. We are carrying the drop at ANT/DOTE. You can purchase the collection on our web store – we ship worldwide – or visit our store in Atlanta.

Fashion Week Notes, Women’s S/S 2020 – Part 1

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

Paris, France – “Dries, now there is a real designer,” sighed my AirBnB landlord, after expressing his frustration about working for a major, and majorly uninspiring Parisian house. Indeed, he is and he proved it yet again with another sublime show. Each seat had a red rose on it with handwritten “DVN” X some other initials, which I only understood were that of Christian Lacroix, the legendary Parisian designer whose label has been defunct for some time and whom Van Noten brought on to collaborate for this collection. This was a “collab” in the Van Noten vein – a sign of mutual respect that did not stink of a money grab like many collaborations do. It was soulful, not cynical. And the clothes were sublime, with faint military influences on some pieces and with couture-like shapes on others that had Lacroix’s signature on them. Of course there were explosion of flowers, color, and couture-like embroidery. When Dries Van Noten brought Lacroix for the final bow it was a fashion moment fo sure. This was a longing for an idealized past of the kind I can get behind – bringing out people to refresh our collective fashion amnesia. Which made me think that we are not exactly forgetful – we do remember the greats… when we are reminded of their existence.