Doublet designer Masayuki Ino adds different feels to Paris Fashion Week – dark, menacing ones, but the knife he sometimes holds to your throat is only a rubber squeaky toy.
Guests were beckoned to his show on Saturday night with a ransom-note invitation of jumbled letters, and a puffy red stress ball left on each seat was labeled “Someone’s heart.” The display was prefaced with strobes of lightning, and the sound of footsteps approaching on a stormy night. Eeek!
Ino said the show was about “villains,” but his had more bark than bite. He popped the middy collar of a sailor top to give off vampire vibes; threaded a toy snake instead of a shoelace through the hood of a black sweatshirt, and scattered punky studs on shoes as squishy as Crocs.
Sure there were monster mouths baring big fangs on T-shirts, but you viewed them through a slash on the back of a cozy, curly-haired faux fur chubby. The toe-box of derby shoes also gaped open, revealing a cartoonish red tongue.
Ino’s clothes are often rather basic – loose tailoring for him, skirt suits with a whiff of Rue Cambon for her – and then twisted via offbeat color, crackled finishing, dangling gewgaws, and accessories that feel like punchlines. There were zippered pouches resembling stacks of money and water bottles resembling cans of spray paint.
The designer explained that villains are so in the eye of the beholder, and often righteous beholders. Indeed, the stress ball was another metaphor. “Maybe when you’re releasing some stress, you’re maybe hurting somebody,” he suggested.
