She’s Got Soul
Review of Sacai Spring 2027 Men’s Fashion Show
By Angela Baidoo
Before today’s Sacai show started, and guests were gathering, a distinctive hat could be seen moving among the crowd. Only for its owner to be revealed as the legendary founder of Soul II Soul, Jazzie B OBE, aka ‘The Funki Dred.’ Credited with bringing the sounds of UK soul to the USA, in the early 1980s and 1990s Jazzie B forged the creation of Soul II Soul as a sound system and collective that produced Grammy winning albums, opened a dedicated store to sell merchandise and records, and set up a fashion line with the unmistakeable logo depicting Jazzie B himself. All under the banner “A happy face, a thumpin’ bass, for a lovin’ race.” A tagline that would feature in Chitose Abe’s spring collection that was filled with its own kind of soulful self-assurance.
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
Structural Disruption, Club Culture Comes Full Circle, Releasing Traditions
The coming together of these two creative minds occurred when Abe found they shared a common philosophy, according to the notes. That of “positivity, inclusivity, and the pursuit of happiness and love” and to pay homage the designer created a new fabric that featured archive images from the culturally influential Sunday night residency at London’s Africa Centre. There were also T-shirts that carried the infamous tagline, to be discovered once more by a new generation with whom it will resonate now more than ever.
The show opened to the unmistakeable opening lyrics of “Back to life (However do you want me)” a song that featured as a top-10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1989, and was inspired by the lead vocalist on the song Caron Wheeler, who co-wrote the lyrics based on her near-death experience. When she was literally brought ‘Back to Life’ to fulfil her purpose. The collection was imbued with this infectious energy that was on a mission to move menswear on from the typical archetypes and update their wardrobes with ‘The New Classics.’ Upheld as purveyors of ‘tradition and craftsmanship’ for over 200 years, Abe staged an “intellectual intervention” via a Brooks Brothers collaboration, as a way to “disrupt conservative codes” by colliding them with subverted standards of dress.
As the designer sees it, menswear is trapped in a place of stasis and by applying her specific form of ‘structural disruption’ a new story can be established. A classic Brooks Brothers blazer was treated to Sacai’s special brand of hybridisation, while button-down collars were liberated from the uniformity of the tie and inserted with the fluidity of a silk scarf or embroidered panel.
The assignment with her spring collection was simply to free “classic garments from historical constraints,” placing the emphasis back onto their function as a modern manifestation of everyday functionality, while embracing all that is unconventional and experimental.
THE WRAP UP
By disrupting classic structures within the menswear wardrobe, Chitose Abe is consistently embracing the unconventional and deconstructing the traditional, as today’s Jazzie B and Brooks Brothers collaborations can attest.
