Are you the same person in the morning and after-hours? Not quite, and neither were the characters that Masayuki Ino invoked in Doublet’s spring collection.
True to form, the designer captured a kooky cast at three junctures in their day — as it started, going about their business and once the sun’s gone down.
The Doublet crowd included a schoolgirl who starts her day in a pleated skirt uniform and turns colorful Harajuku chick once the bell rings; the pretty boy with wads of cash and lipstick prints all over himself no matter what he wears; the fashionista sporting an “I [heart] PFW” T-shirt, and a yuppie who started at the gym and ended with plastic overcoat à la Patrick Bateman.
In for a wild ride was the cat owner, looking the worst for wear with their occupied cat carrier in hand and a shredded “I love Puma” T-shirt, teasing Doublet’s new collaboration with the sportswear company.
A giant coffee cup clutch, totes that looked like an armful of shopping bags and tights printed to look like the wearer was sunburnt and wearing a barely-there thong were among fun details to spot.
You could stop at these zany fashions, since it was clever as ever. But Ino is looking at the bigger picture too.
On top of the carbon-capture yarn he used last season, he introduced pieces that used new options, tapping recycled charcoal, banana fiber or wood.
Not that you’d know just by looking at, say, a fuzzy leopard motif cardigan, where the shading of the big cat’s marking used that charcoal-based one, or a tweed that mixed all of them.
There was also an all-in-one wrap that turned into a trompe-l’oeil of a shirt, slipdress and trenchcoat layered on top of each other, with each segment made using a different innovative fabric.
It underscored the collection’s idea of a life lived in layers but also advanced Doublet’s sustainability narrative by treating such innovations as the fabric of daily life today, not next-generation options.
