Setchu

As this season’s Pitti Guest Designer, Setchu’s Satoshi Kuwata took over the imposing salons of Florence’s Biblioteca Nazionale to stage an elaborate, multi-layered performance. It marked the Japanese designer’s first full-fledged fashion show before a live audience, and at a preview, he conceded he was feeling the pressure: “Not sure I’ll do it again,” he laughed. Kuwata is meticulous in each of his manifestations, be it private or professional—letting go isn’t part of the picture. He wants everything sotto controllo—he’s the ultimate control-freak polymath.

Setchu, his brand, is the embodiment of his real-life situation as a Kyoto-born Japanese designer who has lived most of his life out of a suitcase (fishing gear in tow). The East-West tension—cultural, visual, personal—is the force powering the ingenuity of his designs. In Florence, Kuwata lavished it on, with a dense tour de force that revealed the scope of his considerable creative reach. As he doesn’t draw, his peculiar design process always starts in meditative conversation with a piece of white paper. Where we see only a blank surface, Kuwata visualizes the poetic geometry that underpins his creations. Squares, triangles, and rectangles fold, juxtapose, overlap, separate, and join in multiple origami-style mutating formations, tied together by the sartorial technique he honed on London’s Savile Row.

The abundance of ideas in the show could have easily powered two or more additional outings. Kuwata envisioned unfolding sections from morning to evening, mirroring the rhythm of the day, their flow highlighted by groups of bespoke creations crafted Setchu-style by Davies & Sons, the longest-standing tailor on Savile Row. Formal black morning suits were transformed with origami-like precision, and could be folded neatly into compact packages thanks to pressed front pleats, or shortened into cropped jackets via a button sewn into the back lining. Double-breasted collegiate blue blazers with gold buttons featured tucked and turned-up sides, while a tailcoat was reimagined with the tails tucked over, and paired with a fringed hakama capelet made from cotton textured like tatami mats.

The show’s distinctive tartan pattern in shades of gray, black, and white was designed in appreciation of a time when information traveled through monochromatic media, from TV screens to newspapers to printed books that had life-changing powers. “You didn’t find a book; you met a book. The experience of encountering certain books has been priceless,” he said. In Japan, similar tartan patterns can be found on kimonos, and tartan was one of the first fabrics he ever purchased as a child experimenting with making his own clothes: “I didn’t even know what a punk was,” he said.

Fashion shows challenge designers to hone their showmanship and grapple with the limitations of their practice. They’re a sort of double-edged sword—capable of pushing their career to new heights, while also testing (sometimes rather destructively) their sense of self-worth. Kuwata, a thoughtful and deliberate designer, approached the pressure with caution. His presentation had a dense yet fluid flow, punctuated by a few standouts.

One of the showstoppers was a square-shaped shirt crafted from luxurious silk brocade in crimson and gold, woven in the obi-kimono style. The intricate pattern drew inspiration from Genji Monogatari, an 11th-century Japanese tale penned by a noblewoman and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court, chronicling the romantic escapades of Prince Genji. “The story was essentially the first rom-com ever written, a sort of Sex and the City or Emily in Paris,” Kuwata explained; he embedded a homoerotic twist into the silk jacquard motifs by depicting Prince Genji falling hopelessly for a fisherman. A further nod to Japanese erotica came in the form of a dramatic evening gown with train and matching capelet crafted in sumptuous black lace; upon closer inspection, the pattern revealed octopuses’ heads distorted into rather explicit phallic shapes. “I’m the first designer showing 300 dicks and counting in a fashion show!” joked Kuwata.

The Setchu experience continued after the show on the library’s first floor, where guests roamed the vaulted salons, meandering through antique glass cabinets that displayed the brand’s artisanal creations set against tatami-like textures. “I wanted to showcase the inspiration inside my brain that goes into every Setchu piece,” Kuwata pointed out. From foldable shoes and origami totes to dissected jumpers, bracelets crafted from fishing tools, and even the tiniest mother-of-pearl buttons, he controls the design of each item with meticulous focus—his brain is clearly rather capacious. Now, a perfume is in the works, the scent crafted from rose petals and umeboshi prunes. “When I was a child, my mother would give me salty umeboshi when I was unwell, as a nurturing act of love,” he shared. It seems Kuwata has his own Proustian madeleine—found in the form of a prune.