UNDERCOVER - The Myths Reinvented by Jun Takahashi

From the short perfecto adorned with leather feathers to bayadere stripes on a voluminous petticoat, Takahashi does not shy away from anything. The designer's creativity is enhanced tenfold by his desire to play with contrasts while avoiding the obvious. For 25 years now, UNDERCOVER has known how to free itself from the herd, lone wolf, punk in its essence. With him more than anywhere else, exploration is the mother of creation.

If there is a Japanese designer who has established himself as one of the precursors of Japanese streetwear and the Ura-Harajuku movement, it is Jun Takahashi. Spectacular without being flashy, Takahashi's creations for UNDERCOVER found their place in the Parisian fashion shows calendar as early as 2002, and at Leclaireur in the wake.

"We make noise, not clothes

"I wanted to make clothes that were barely beautiful; I wanted to interpret culture through fashion." Like Vivienne Westwood, whom he lists as a major influence in his work, Takahashi imagines clothes to speak to the world around him.

It's this creativity that gives the brand the opportunity to collaborate and surround itself with free and sharp designers - Hiroshi Fujiwara, a leading figure in Tokyo streetwear, or Takahiro Miyashita, the designer of The Soloist, come to mind. Even closer to the designer is Rei Kawakubo, founder of Comme des Garçons, with whom he has had a lasting friendship since the mid-1990s, based on a pair of sneakers she wanted to buy, which he decided to give her.

The last women's fashion show, during the Paris fashion weekwas part of this same appetite for research and experimentation, transforming the works of Matthieu Bourel into prints, imagining a pyramidal glass bag in which sits a golden apple. The mannequins, mystical beasts with a thousand reflections, advanced with their foreheads adorned with golden wood, modernized hybrid nymphs. UNDERCOVER clothes evoke reinvented cultures, forgotten mystical animals and nature, always fantasized.

Let UNDERCOVER men's and women's creations turn your head at Leclaireur Sévigné.