“Perhaps we are all aliens to someone. And perhaps that is precisely what connects us.” Pertinent words in the press release for today’s Kolor show, which was about the terminal loneliness of the human condition, and the tenderness of trying to understand another being.
The core of the collection was more Men in Black than Mars Attacks, with business suits and pinstriped tailoring that was tweaked or warped, given extra buttons, colorful waistbands, or skew-whiff necklines to channel a sense of uncanniness. As the show went on the colors became bolder, culminating in a group of sleek Martian green looks. Throughout, a handful of models sported black sclera lenses, and others wore not-quite-trompe-l’oeil coats that had been superimposed with images of fur. Others looked vaguely Western, with yoking on jackets and boots. Space cowboys? “It’s about imitating humans in daily life,” said Horiuchi afterwards. “Some aliens are not good at it, you know, so they start to show their alienness.”
To make his point the designer drew on a galaxy of references that included The X-Files and Animal Instincts, as well as David Bowie and Andy Warhol (two men that, Horiuchi said “were in many ways deeply extraterrestrial figures themselves”). He also brought in a Taiwanese psychedelic band called Mong Tong to help with the music, Greece-based artist Klaus Schmidt to do the textiles, and China-born, Japan-based painter Yang Bo on the graphics.
A happily diverse mix, then, that was impossible to be pinned down to a single place or time. Horiuchi never veered into costume, keeping everything clean and restrained throughout.
The Japanese designer knows well what it is to feel other; he has lived overseas in London and Antwerp, and after taking over from Junichi Abe at Kolor last year, is still something of an alien himself in the studio. Still, Horiuchi is clearly finding his footing there, and this amounted to a confident and intelligently executed collection. “His best yet,” said a fellow editor on the way out.
After the show, Horiuchi’s press team emailed over a touching set of notes that the designer had written: “At its heart, science fiction has always been about human curiosity toward the unknown, and ultimately, about our capacity to understand and love what is different from ourselves.” More of that, please.