Emi Funayama used Bettie Page as her muse for this season’s Fetico collection, and named it ‘Queen of Curves’ after the pin-up model’s photo book of the same name. “If you look at photos of Bettie most of them are nude, so I wanted to pursue the idea of highlighting the body even more by wearing clothes. I tried to explore in my own way that fetishism can exist without showing skin,” Funayama explained after the show, which was held in an old-fashioned Tokyo dance hall complete with chintzy wallpaper and star-like ceiling lights.
She did this by strapping bondage harnesses across soft tailoring and floral dresses so that their silhouettes were more pronounced, and by dotting denim jackets with eyelets so that they resembled corsets. Further fetishistic flashes came with a leopard print bodysuit worn underneath a trench coat, and a couple of super-cropped, knicker-flashing twinsets that would surely get the neighbors talking.
Fetico’s trademark brand of sexiness works especially well in the Japanese market, where it fills a gap for sensually sophisticated clothing, but there’s still room for Funayama to step further out of her comfort zone. The corset jackets and lace slip dresses will likely sell well, but overall this collection was safe and lacked bite, which is what glamour depends on.
What Funayama did accomplish was that she made vintage-inspired womenswear feel right for the moment. If the oversized velvet bomber that came out towards the end of the show seemed incongruous to the mid-century silhouettes elsewhere, it was Funayama’s way of injecting modernity while making it her own. In true Fetico fashion, it had a leather choker that buckled and strapped across the neck—if a young Bettie Page had time-traveled to the 21st century, it would no doubt suit her well.
