Review of Anrealage Fall 2023 Fashion Show
The ‘Scientist of Fashion’ Creates Reality out of Fantasy
By Angela Baidoo
If any out there were still contemplating how to truly apply digital techniques to the traditionally craft-based and analogue world of physical fashion, then wonder no more as Anrealage’s Kunihiko Kaneko, for his fall 2023 show – which took place in a setting that was a very clever play on the tension between old and new, namely the Théâtre de la Madeline – proposed a futuristic vision of clothing which begins life as a blank slate and uses a form of on-the-body digital printing to create multi-coloured graphics that had to be seen to be believed.
For the fashion world and beyond, it’s time to push beyond the limits of our Umwelten (German for surroundings or environemnt), our subjective realities; to open up our receptors to different points of view and to things that exist beyond what we can perceive.
Kunihiko Kaneko, Designer, Anrealage
Not often does a fashion show have the ability to garner an audible crowd reaction, but as the show got started, two models took to the stage in clean white oversized suits which were rendered with a jacquard, with each jacket being worn back-to-front complete with fur skullcaps. So far, so typical fashion show, it was then that two light fixtures descended from above exposing the looks to ‘natural sunlight (UV rays)’, which proceeded to ‘digitally’ paint both suits in a soft pastel Anrealage logo graphic print.
Revealed in the show notes, the materials used in the collection were an expansion of the designers portfolio of “experimental photochromic materials produced in-house”. Considered a Scientist of Fashion, Kaneko harnessed the technology to develop his own take on the German concept of ‘Umwelt’. A 19th-century idea which was developed by German philosopher and biologist Jakob Johann Baron von Uexküll, the concept looks to the environment or surroundings in which we inhabit and explores “how living beings perceive their environment”. To create silhouettes that appear equal, looks came out worn “front/front” and “back/back”, designed purposefully so, as part of Kaneko’s mission within this collection to allow the viewer to open themselves up to seeing things differently and celebrating diversity by doing so.
Blending the past and present (or future) didn’t just stop at the show’s location, silhouettes were inspired by the 1950’s – think wide-collared housecoats and fit-and-flare dresses in faux fur, satin, and jacquard – and as performed during the show, under the exposure to UV light revealed the designers experimentation with colour and pattern that was applied onto the clothing. The show notes also reveal that as the intensity of the natural sunlight changes, so too will the variations in colour of each garment.
And as with the changing nature of the industry, these creations for fall 2023 are also designed to constantly shift their tonal range. “Designed to evolve through the days and seasons” as highlighted by the designer, when no longer exposed to UV rays they will return to their original colour. Epitomising the idea of human evolution, how we interact with our environment, and the way in which said environment can change us.
Pushing photochromic technology to new levels, Morinaga takes the ethereal concept of the flower-woman to its most radical reality in human perception.
Anrealage
With this collection Kunihiko Kaneko is pushing for us all to move beyond our boundaries, especially within fashion, and go further with what we think can be our reality. And in an industry that was on the cusp of real change but a few short years ago, it’s now time once again according to the designer “To celebrate the rich variety of world views as being “=” to our own”.