Fashion has always sought out muses and icons to embody a particular style. But the inspiration behind Graphpaper's Spring/Summer collection this season came not from performers on stage or heroines on screen, but from anonymous people passing through the streets. As Graphpaper Director Takayuki Minami traveled through cities around the world, he found himself naturally drawn to watching these people. Their unconscious way of dressing, and the things he found interesting about it, became the starting point. A vague sensation was gradually given form, resulting in Graphpaper's new collection, "REMNANT."
Interview & Text by Rui Konno
―This season's theme is "REMNANT." It's a word that carries nuances like "what remains" or "residue," doesn't it?
Yeah. But there's nothing particularly negative about it. Put simply, especially when it comes to the image of a man, it's about something that feels a little "Grandpa-like," I suppose. You could also call it gentlemanly. When I travel overseas, I often see older guys wearing a jacket with a cap and some casual trousers. Those kinds of people were the inspiration.
―So rather than fashionistas, you're talking about ordinary people you encounter in everyday life?
Exactly. Personally, I often find people on the street more interesting and stylish than people in fashion. As I watched them, I started wondering what would happen if I took that slightly "Grandpa-ish" quality and developed it through Graphpaper's own approach and use of materials. That gradually became the theme for this collection.
―I see. Looking at the collection as a whole, the texture of the fabrics does feel somewhat different from what you've done before.
In terms of the material aesthetic, I was thinking about '90s Giorgio Armani and things like that. Since it's Spring/Summer, there are quite a few pieces with a slightly masculine resort feeling. Japanese summers are extremely hot now, so I wanted things that still felt cool and lightweight, but had a slightly classic appearance. I went to the Netherlands a little while ago, and I really loved the colors of the buildings I saw there. Those colors became the basis for this collection. When choosing the Pantone colors myself, I would go back and look at the photographs from that trip.
―So that's why there are so many slightly muted colors. The lookbook visuals are also different this time. Rather than the usual static poses, there's much more movement.
Yeah. A lot of the materials have a light, airy quality, so I thought having the models move would make the textures easier to understand. I've always liked that kind of Armani-esque masculine image, but rather than the Italian sense of sexiness, I wanted to approach it with something more Japanese - a more restrained, understated sensibility.
―How did the actual collection take shape?
It starts with creating the fabrics. Then it's a question of how to translate those fabrics into designs. The overall process is the same as always. This time, we made most of the fabrics into some form of melange. The methods differ - some are woven, some knitted, some achieve it through the twist of the yarn itself - but if you look closely, almost everything has some kind of melange effect. The only real exception is the suede.
―Over the past few years, you've often included leather pieces even in your Spring/Summer collections.
- Leather hoodie and nubuck shirt
There's quite a strong demand for leather at Graphpaper, so making leather pieces for Spring/Summer has gradually become something of a tradition for us. This time, I also felt that suede and nubuck were necessary to bring out that slightly "Grandpa-ish" quality. This pullover, for example, started with a conversation along the lines of, "Leather hoodies are kind of charming, aren't they?" We considered using synthetic leather, but we thought it might end up looking cheap, so we decided to use real leather. I think it would also look great on a woman wearing it oversized.
―Even with the same slightly "Grandpa-ish" clothes, they take on a different freshness when worn by women.
Yeah. We're matching the material feeling with the men's collection, but I think it's attractive when women wear those slightly old-fashioned fabrics too. It would be nice to have that sense of ease and elegance at the same time. The way the drape falls in the relaxed silhouettes is shared with the menswear, but in the women's collection we also bring in sheer knits and things like that.
―Going back to the melange idea, was creating a sense of dimensionality the reason you avoided making the woven fabrics simple, solid colors?
That was part of it, but when I started thinking about the keyword of "Grandpa-ish," the image of mottled, heathered fabrics naturally came to mind. I thought it would be interesting to make almost everything in a heathered finish, so I started discussing it with the weaving mills and developing the fabrics that way. I don't think there are many fabrics like this one out there, actually.
―It felt very unusual when I touched it. It has this drape and elasticity at the same time. What's the fiber composition?
64% linen and 36% cupro. We deliberately combined glossy cupro, the kind of material often used for suit linings, with linen that has a more pronounced slub texture. I wanted to create something that looked like the kind of fabric you might find on an old Drizzler jacket worn by some old guy in a vintage store.
―The result has a lot of character, but when you hear the inspiration behind it, it somehow sounds rather unglamorous. (Laughs.)
Yeah. (Laughs.) It's basically like taking that idea and replacing it with slightly better materials. This China jacket also looks like denim, but it's actually a melange fabric. It ended up being a strangely interesting fabric, in a good way, and I really like it.
―But once you start working with melange, you're combining multiple colors at the yarn stage, so the final tone becomes even more complex. Can you clearly visualize the result beforehand?
There's actually quite a lot that you can't know until you try it. You look at the yarns individually and imagine what will happen when you combine them, but you really have to weave them to know. You wonder, "Will this end up looking lighter or darker? Which way will it go?" This fabric, for example, is actually quite a conventional suiting weave, but we haven't really done much with heathered wool before, so it feels fresh.
There are quite a lot of slightly strange fabrics like that this time, so I think people may have fairly divided opinions about them. These fabrics also have that old Armani feeling, but because they contain synthetic fibers rather than being entirely wool, they're lightweight and dry quickly. That's a fairly distinctive characteristic. The pattern itself is quite a "Grandpa-ish" one, too, but I thought that made it interesting.
―Almost like a dobby stripe.
Exactly. The composition itself is something we've used at Graphpaper throughout the year, although we change the pattern and other details. It also changes depending on what kinds of yarns we put into the warp and weft.
―You don't often see a heathered fabric in a tone like olive green.
Maybe not. But when you go overseas and look through vintage stores, you sometimes come across trousers in these really nice, slightly dowdy colors. That said, Graphpaper makes clothes for contemporary urban life, so rather than thinking about a return to classicism, we're always trying to strip things down and make them minimal. If something is simply thick, heavy, and visually "Grandpa-ish," there's no point in us making it. I don't like clothes that I personally find difficult to wear.
―So comfort remains a priority. But one particularly noticeable change this season is that you're adding leather shoes alongside sneakers.
I'd been talking with Toshinosuke Takegahara for quite a while about making leather shoes. This was the point where we decided to develop them together as a Graphpaper staple. I'd also wanted to make women's shoes for a long time. A lot of the women on our staff were already wearing Takegahara's shoes, so it made sense.
―We can see the overall approach now, but what exactly is it about that slightly "Grandpa-ish" quality that appeals to you?
Maybe it's the dowdiness? I don't know exactly what it is... But I do think there's a kind of character that can only come from being an older guy. As I've gotten older myself, I often find myself thinking, "Something like this wouldn't have suited me when I was younger, but now I can wear it completely naturally." But with this Graphpaper collection, that's simply where the thinking started. If a younger person wears these clothes, I think they'll look perfectly natural too. I'd rather people just wear them without thinking too much about it.
―In an age where trends are instantly shared the moment they emerge, and where there are an enormous number of brands and clothes but fewer genuinely surprising styles or ways of dressing, the style of an older man on the street can be full of unexpected things.
Put simply, they probably aren't thinking about it that much. (Laughs.) Maybe it's just, "I'll throw on a jacket and that'll do." But I don't really have a strong feeling that I want people to wear Graphpaper in a particular way either. Even the way I dress - matching jacket and trousers with a T-shirt underneath - is so simple that I can hardly criticize the older guys out there for not thinking about it much.
―But this interview probably contains more references to "Grandpa" than any previous one.
(Laughs.) But after actually turning the idea into a collection, I realized it doesn't end up looking as "Grandpa-ish" as I expected. Even when we deliberately make something quite dowdy, it surprisingly ends up looking modern. I suppose, as a brand, it has to. That's basically how it turned out.
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