Here’s the exposition: this Undercover collection was a spring sequel to last season’s runway-presented remix of Jun Takahashi’s fall 2004 collection, which he delivered in part as a gesture to mark the brand’s 35th anniversary. Cut to scene: unlike last season, this collection was presented in the showroom. As with menswear in June, there were some relaxed models in looks and espresso on tap, yet this were no real substitute for seeing Takahashi’s work in a show format.
The key garment on display was a black dress with a wavy white-edged hem that was set with padded decorations made by the artist Anne-Valérie Dupond, whose history with Undercover goes back to that 2004 collection. The dress was fronted with stitched satin and felt innards that ran down from lungs to intestines. Dupond had attached a stuffed spinal cord and sacrum at the back that came set with golden naval blazer buttons. She set a frog on the upper of the look’s right shoe, and what looked like an animal skull on the right. Her arrangement was flanked by stuffed foliage.
The collection around this hand-set dress was much more standardized in manufacture, but with entertaining quirks that reflected the designer’s cuddly toy starting point. There were those wavy hems, plus disjointed button openings and de-standardized button arrangements. A fleece was stamped with the raised outline of a heart. A blue cardigan, Breton tee and wide black combat pant—deeply normal—was an all-in-one garment. There were some fun pants and shorts clad in feather-like coats of nylon, in scarlet or black. Takahashi had drawn a strange new character, an angel with three arms and two unusually shaped heads, that featured on embroidered accessories. And there were some very fine tooled leather cowboy boots with wavily meandering shafts.
Plot twist: according to information released at the scene, this collection will star in an imminent Undercover film currently slated for release next month.
