“Craziness is like heaven,” Jimi Hendrix once said. This Hendrix-inspired Junya Watanabe collection was as crazy as it was heavenly. Postshow and via translator, Watanabe said he’d been listening to the 2024-released rarities-and-outtakes album Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision. Added the translator: “Jimi Hendrix was his idol 30 or 40 years ago when he started creating garments. So when he listened to this music that was released last year, it reminded him of when he started creating garments.”
The translator added of Watanabe: “He doesn’t have, like, a particular connection between Cubism and rock.” And the designer didn’t need a reason for using clothing as a vessel through which to combine two disruptive archetypes from different genres of art: It was just that the fresh Hendrix made him think that way.
The opening section saw Watanabe apply Cubist forms as a distortion of the classic Perfecto jacket. Rhomboid extensions rose from the hip, pyramid spikes jutted from the shoulder, and the entire façade was blown up into a cube. These and other experimental takes were worn with faux-hair and croc-leatherette-mix rock pants, python-pattern boots, studded nonslip work boots, and the occasional pair of grommet-edged spectacles.
The distortions were then applied and extended to denim jackets, trench jackets, and knitwear. Some very prog-rock looks paired virile pelted tops fashioned from inverted wigs with modish bell-bottoms. An olive MA-1 bomber jacket was remixed into a cocoonish, couture-shaped dress waisted at the knee. The peak puritan Peter Pan–collared black velvet dress was given a broodingly hunchback proportion. The final looks were cast in vectors of shiny black plastic stitched into darkly reptilian and heroic frontman forms. “Angel came down from heaven yesterday,” sang Hendrix as this crazy Watanabe wah-wah-wear’s final looks walked past.
