Junya Watanabe sexually timbers at Paris Fashion Week menswear show

Washed up in Brooklyn around 2009.

Physically, I was in Paris and sat at the Junya Watanabe fashion show. But spiritually? Oh, I was in Williamsburg during the Obama era.

The model was wearing a Husky Filson jacket, buffalo check, tan cloth bag, Mondo hiking boots, and dark washed jeans.

But most of all, it was Man's beard in a pile of feathers. I could actually smell the beard oil. Maybe it was getting a haircut at an $80 barbershop on Driggs Avenue while listening to Arcade Fire.

At least in Watanabe's hands. Designer, part of the Comme des Garçons expanded universe, is a singular force. So far in Paris, he is the only designer who is handing out the past for inspiration.

Still, seeing the ghosts of the Aughts Heritage Movement was a bit confusing. This is the wave that sent city-bound men wild for old outdoor essentials like Raw Denim, Barbour Coats, and Filson Cruiser Jackets – which we'll be revisiting soon. Fifteen years ago, this collection would have received wall-to-wall coverage with #Menswear blogs like Continuing Lean. Fashion trends cycle quickly, but do they really? Is this fast?

Behind the scenes, Watanabe has ditched the cold Pacific Northwest waters for this concept. Yes, he was familiar with the legacy wave he grew up in America 20 years ago. There was a similar movement in Japan, he said through a translator.

But it was a “not related to this” show.

Rather, Watanabe says the collection is a meditation on how much he adored the four-pocket Filson Mackinac cruiser, a hip-length coat originally patented by the American outfitter in 1914. Ta.

He said he shares “classic, good old-fashioned workwear with Filson.”

Share, yes. But I'll reconsider. Each model in the 41-look show wore a twisted conceptualization of Mackinac. They were reconstituted, deconstructed, extended into parkas, frankenstashed into shirrings, given pumpkin orange back panels, and shaved into blazer-type things worn over separate mackinaws. . All that was missing was Mackinac, who had mutated into a jumpsuit.

This is a practical design associated with lumberjacks and hunters, so perhaps Watanabe is making a grand statement about returning to nature in the face of the onslaught of artificial intelligence and technological oligarchs conquering the world. Have you ever wondered if there is? After all, the original legacy movement led to the online startup boom, when men started craving something analog, something they could feel in their hands, something they could handle like a tool. came as an answer.

Behind the scenes, Watanabe wasn't in the mood to paste any grand ideas into this collection. The Filson jacket “has been around for a long time,” he said, adding that he's asking more questions about this temporal trend or that.

Still, near the show's conclusion, the words “I see change in the rise” were delivered on the soundtrack. To my eyes, it wasn't the change that Mr. Watanabe was offering, and on Friday morning I could spot heritage hipsters once again on the horizon.