Fabric Matters
Autumn/Winter 2022
Sensory experience is my primary consideration when dressing. I am focused on how the clothes feel to wear, feel to move in, and how that sensory input impacts my mood throughout the day. As much as soft fabrics play a large role in my self-soothing kit, with my wardrobe it is not just about fluffy mohairs and warm teddy fleeces (as much as I tell myself every Winter that I want to dress like a hug personified). This is because comfort comes in many forms to me.
Psychological comfort is just as important as physical comfort. For example, many men can find a suit restrictive and uncomfortable to wear, but I actually enjoy that feeling of being encased and armored. And yet even here physical comfort plays a role in the sense that I want to be able to move easily in a suit (meaning it has to be well tailored) and for the fabric to feel nice to the touch. I suppose it is almost always a combination of psychological and physical factors, and some of the garments I choose lean more in one direction than the other.
When shopping for clothes, before I consider how an item fits or will look on my body, I touch it and see how it feels in the hand. If it has a lining, I want to see what the lining feels like, especially if it will be in direct contact with my skin. Even when it might not have direct contact, say for example the lining of a blazer, I love any designer who pays attention to the lining fabric and gives me some sense of luxury that is solely for the joy of the wearer (even if visually with a fun print or colour). Fabric informs everything, and so perhaps it is unsurprising that I love Yohji Yamamoto, who famously asked “Are you listening? The fabric has much to teach us.”
In reading about the work of Ryota Iwai, designer of Tokyo-based label AURALEE, I found myself sold by his approach, even had I not seen the clothes. Iwai states that the inspiration starts primarily with the fabric and material development process, saying that “it is always a snowball effect where the research of the materials informs what kind of fabric we want to create, and the fabrics decide what shapes will best showcase them or convey their qualities.” It goes beyond sensory experience though, with the designer saying that it is through the fabric that they are able to convey “feeling, emotion and beauty.”
Speaking to Highsnobiety about his Autumn/Winter 2022 collection, Iwai said that he wanted “to make garments that exist outside of just the runway, a wardrobe that is wearable and that brings joy to people’s everyday lives as well.” As someone for whom fabrics play such an integral part of my self-soothing kit, this idea of clothing that brings joy is interesting to me, especially when informed by fabric choice. When it comes to serotonin dressing we usually hear about colour and prints that make people smile, but more so than colour (after all, I wear all black), I am drawn to sensory experience.
The inspiration for this collection was the idea of the sun peeking through clouds and snowy skies - a warming Winter’s kiss if you will. My father is not a poetic man, but I remember one Winter I asked him what made him happy. Rather than telling me, he showed me. We were driving and he pointed to snowdrops growing on the roadside of the park. He said there was a short window every year where those flowers grew in that location, and at first light the sun would kiss them while the night’s frost slowly melted. That is what I personally think of whenever someone mentions Winter sunshine.
I have not been able to handle any of the pieces from this collection in person yet, but I definitely want to so that I can fully appreciate the clothes. What I am most interested in is actually the tweed. Iwai used tweed for the first time in any of his collections, and it is a fabric blend that was made specially in collaboration with Nihon Homespun. Speaking about it he said that the tweed pieces are “comfortable to wear even though it is voluminous and has such a great atmosphere to them. Especially since there will be more days where people will wear more weighty clothing during the Winter, it is convenient to have something so lightweight and comfortable like this—it might help to change our mood when people cannot be bothered to wear coats when they go out.”
Fabric matters. Sometimes the reality of that is lost when so much fashion is consumed digitally rather than physically, but I am glad to see designers who are so passionate about it.
xxxx
