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telegraph.co.ukBy Hilary Alexander
Last Updated: 11:13AM GMT 07 Mar 2009
Models wear creations from the Junya Watanabe autumn/winter 09/10 collection at Paris Fashion Week Photo: AFP/GETTY
Two of Puccini’s most famous and tragic operas, “Madame Butterfly” and ‘Tosca’, formed a suitably sombre soundtrack for the Junya Watanabe show; both heroines die, one by stabbing herself in the breast with a dagger, the other by hurling herself from the city battlements.
It was thus unsurprising that the entire collection – save for one white, pleated shirt, some gold chains and a few gold lame shifts (and even they were veiled in black chiffon) – was in black.
The models appeared, as the Puccini arias soared; voluminous, puffed-out black figures, dimly discerned against black walls and black carpet. As they entered a solitary pool of light in front of the cameras, the beams picked out the towering 3ft high wigs, designed and made in Japan by Kastsuyo Kamo, the black face-paint and the all-enveloping coats, capes and dresses, all made from down-filled nylon in the manner of duvets and sleeping bags.
High collars framed the faces, sleeves were folded like heron’s wings, black gloves, black leggings and flat, black patent laced-ups completed the midnight parade. Occasionally, the capes were raised up to enshroud the head – and then dropped dramatically to the floor as the models approached the photographers.
Other times they were part-open at the front to disclose Watanabe’s ingenious ways with draping, pleating, folding and godets, which created a more controlled volume, in black jersey.
Shown without the feathered-filled outer layers were more black jersey dresses, knotted like togas and worn over black polo-necks and leggings, with just a tiny glimpse of bare ankle above the shoes. Gold lame skirts and shifts, and gold chains which tethered sections of the duvets, were a brief, sparkling punctuation.
“Feathers and hair,” Watanabe said backstage. “I wanted to make feathers not casual.”
All around him, studio aides were busily wrapping up the black, feather-filled designs in brown paper sacks.