“Form follows function,” the famous quote by American architect Louis Sullivan, is an idea that White Mountaineering’s Yosuke Aizawa often thinks about when designing. Speaking backstage before his show this afternoon, the designer said he’d been inspired by the Brutalist architecture he’d seen growing up in Tokyo. “The design philosophy of fashion and architecture are not so different,” he said. Like an architect mapping out blueprints and choosing building materials, so Aizawa works with fabric. “I visualize the function of an item, the elasticity and mobility of materials, and then adjust them to fit the body,” he explained.
The show was held in the Temple du Saint Esprit, a decidedly un-Brutalist building with oak-paneled walls and a high stained-glass ceiling. The juxtaposition of uber-outdoorsy clothes in the setting of a prayer hall gave the impression of travelers who had come seeking refuge, an image helped along by the wool ponchos, Nordic sweaters and knitted pants that were dotted between the technical pieces. Along with the tribal drums of the soundtrack, they lent the collection a nomadic air that bridged the gap between Tokyo gorpcore enthusiast and mountain-dwelling hermit—a gap that Aizawa, who splits his time between Tokyo and his self-built lodge in the peaks of Nagano, has plenty of experience with.
This tension of the urban and the rural is what sets White Mountaineering apart from its peers. The menswear market is awash with purveyors of technical wear in both style and substance, but few execute their ideas with the attention to detail and applicable expertise that Aizawa can (it’s worth noting that before he started his brand in 2006, Aizawa was a protégé of Junya Watanabe).
Beginning with charcoal gray, the bulk of this collection then unfolded in all-black before clearing to a relief of red, ochre and khaki. As usual there was plenty of functionality to delight in: trousers with openings at the side that revealed quilted inner layers, sweaters that zipped open at the neck. Aizawa also continued his litany of collaborations with Umbro, Reebok, Ecco, Schott, and Rig footwear, which yielded zip-laden leather jackets and snow-appropriate sneakers (Aizawa collaborates a lot, but takes what he needs from each collaborator and meshes it together with cohesion).
Especially interesting were shiny black nylon jackets and trousers threaded with elastic cords that created adjustable pleats on the arms and legs, and harnesses made from complications of backpack straps that fastened around the chest and thighs. They didn’t appear to have any real-life function at all beyond looking cool, but in fashion at least, that’s a function all of its own.
