Designer Jun Takahashi put forth a line of melancholic elegance, underscored by silhouettes donning Helen Verhoeven’s somber paintings.
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Each season, Jun Takahashi’s UNDERCOVER welcomes its fans into subversive fashion worlds inspired by ultra-specific sartorial sources. (In fact, the brand recently unveiled a new photo book, titled Record, chronicling exactly this process, with behind-the-scenes looks into the preparation for its SS16, FW17 and SS17 runway shows.)
Where past collections looked to British-American filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock’s portfolio and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon album for inspiration, UNDERCOVER’s Spring 2024 began more overtly somber. For this season, Takahashi’s mood board was poked with imagery of wailing banshees, or female spirits in Irish folklore known for heralding the deaths of family members with screams and shrieks. So, naturally, the collection possessed a melancholic attitude.
Exploring the mythology’s grim themes, the designer crafted a range defined by a dark elegance. The color story was tastefully gloomy, and prints, while sparse, referenced regal designs from generations past. Silhouettes, like coats and men’s skirts, were largely cut long, and many offered subtle takes on modern deconstruction.
Central to the collection, Takahashi planted graphic interpretations of Helen Verhoeven’s paintings onto a number of silhouettes — artfully articulating the line’s restrained aesthetic. Rounding out his vision, the designer put forth three capsules within the line. The first focused on subverting the standards of the white shirt; the second placed an emphasis on inside-out tailoring, and the third included hybrid formalwear. Overall, UNDERCOVER’s Spring 2024 collection prioritized rewriting traditional codes in menswear, all the while keeping its earnest inspirations at the fore.
Peruse UNDERCOVER’s Spring 2024 collection in the gallery above.