That the word “clothes” has become a buzzword, with designers emphasizing newfound commitments to making just really good clothes, is somewhat puzzling. Shouldn’t this have always been the point? Either way, at the Japanese label Auralee, “good clothes” have been a guiding principle from the start. Designer Ryota Iwai has built a devoted fan base for quality separates made in custom, meticulously considered fabrics, along with a highly sought after New Balance sneakers collaboration.
The Japanese brand launched for the spring 2015 in Tokyo, and Iwai has been showing his collections on the calendar in Paris since January of 2019, but this is the first time he’s putting his clothes on the runway. Auralee is on the rise.
Fall found Iwai ruminating on the quotidian, more specifically the hours in the evening when one is transitioning between working into simply living. “It’s that break after the first half of the day and the end of the day,” explained Iwai. This, the way the designer sees it, is a time of brief anticipation. You’re going home from work, you’re about to have dinner with your friends, meet up with your family, run a couple of errands. Your clothes are lived-in, the properness and formality of the morning washed away by daily activity.
While this collection captures that idea literally in a range of playful styling tricks—dry cleaning hangs over forearms, sweaters and coats peek out of overstuffed briefcases, gloves are held or stuffed in pockets rather than worn—it’s in the nuances of the materiality and cut in Iwai’s clothes where the ease of the end of day takes is conveyed best. There’s a ’90s feel to Iwai’s tailoring, but its proportions are distinctly contemporary: Coats are streamlined and have extra long sleeves and hems, trousers pool over sneakers, and structured shoulder jackets appear hefty but are lightweight to touch. Most inviting is Iwai’s knitwear, made to fit amply around the body, creating wrinkles and creases.
Iwai takes pride in the fact that Auralee produces its own fabrics, sourcing everything from Mongolian cashmere to Peruvian alpaca and working with local mills to produce fabrics to his specifications. The star of the show is a plush alpaca wool used for the puffers, though the fuzzy mohair column gowns and spongy bonded Melton are not far behind. Iwai is an excellent colorist—evidenced here by the use of an equal parts bright and pale honeydew melon hue as if it were a neutral—and that adds further texture to a collection of already very covetable clothes.
Neckties play a supporting but consequential role here. They nod at the ordinary and the corporate, which have been an interest in fashion of late (see: this season’s Prada). Designers seem to be almost exclusively interested in showing collections that are either real or completely fantastical. Iwai’s work falls into the former category. But what happens to the middle ground?
