新しい服に袖を通すたびに、僕は少しだけ大人になれたような気がしていた。

まだ見たことのない景色や、その先に待っている何かへの期待。
そして、ほんの少しの不安。

 

新しい服を纏うことは、そんな期待と不安を一緒に身に纏いながら、まだ知らない自分へと一歩近づいていくことだったのかもしれない。時間の経過とともに、私たちは多くのものを経験し、少しずつ取捨選択を重ねていく。
必要なものを残し、抱えきれないものを手放しながら、知識や経験を蓄積させていく。1人の人間が一度に抱えられる荷物の量には、限界があります。いつの間にか置き去りにしてしまったものがある。捨てられた物の中には、少年の頃に確かに胸に秘めていた、星屑のような煌めきや、雨上がりの水滴を弾く花のような純粋無垢な美しさと初々しさ。
何も疑わずに、ただ夢中になっていた時間。
限られた環境の中で迷いながらも、自分の手で何かを生み出そうとしていた感覚。そんなものが、確かにあったような気がします。

 

大人になることは、何かを手に入れていくことだけではなく、同時に何かを失っていくことなのかもしれない。けれど、失ったものは本当に消えてしまったのだろうか。

 

今回のコレクションでは、少年が大人へと変化していくその時間の経過と、その過程でバラバラに散ってしまった当時の気持ちを、少しずつ拾い集め、もう一度取り戻していく自分自身を投影しました。

大人になった今だからこそ見つけられる、あの頃の煌めき。
忘れていた感覚にもう一度触れ、自分の中に残っていた少年の姿を探していく。それは過去へ戻ることではなく、これまで歩いてきた時間を抱えたまま、もう一度、自分自身の原点に触れることだと感じています。

まず思いついたのは、花や植物、煌めく星々、そして自然のモチーフでした。偶然なことに、私たちデザイナーの北村と石井が育った環境の中には、花や植物という共通項がありました。環境の中に自然と花や植物が存在していました。季節の移り変わりとともに姿を変えていく自然。今思い出すとそこには、時間の経過とともに少しずつ形を変えていく人間の姿とも重なるものがありました。

幼少の頃を思い出すうちに、今回のルックは植木を家業としている石井の育った土地で撮影しようと自然と考えていました。

私たちは幼い頃から、服に限らず、ものづくりが好きでした。

限られた材料や環境の中で、何をつくるのか、どうすれば形になるのかを考え、迷いながらも手を動かしていた。完成するかどうかも分からないまま、それでも手を動かし続けること。その先に何かが生まれることへの期待や希望。30歳を過ぎた今の私たちが振り返ると、そこにはものづくりの原点とも言える、とても純粋な感覚があったように思います。今回のコレクションでは、そんな記憶を辿るように、手作業という部分にフォーカスを当てました。職人による手作業のビーズ刺繍。
繊細な機械刺繍と手刺繍を組み合わせた立体刺繍。
彫刻のような立体的なモチーフを、布やメタルを用いて表現する試み。一つひとつの手の痕跡や、僅かな揺らぎを残しながら、アトリエワークを感じさせるデザインへと落とし込みました。それらを、私たちの得意とするテーラードスタイルや、複雑なパターンメーキングから生まれる構築的なシルエットと組み合わせています。

 

整然としたものの中に、どこか不完全なものを。
大人になった現在の自分の中に、少年だった頃の感覚を。時間を重ねることで失ったものと、時間を重ねたからこそ見つけられるもの。

 

もう一度、少年に。

 

それは、少年に戻るための言葉ではなく、
大人になった今の私たちが、かつての自分をもう一度見つけるための言葉です。あの頃、胸の奥にあった小さな煌めきを、もう一度。

そして、あの頃の自分が見ていた未来の中に、今の自分がいることを確かめるために。

 

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disemBySiiK

Ikuto Kitamura / Saeko Ishii

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Every time I put on a new piece of clothing, I felt as though I had become just a little more grown-up. The anticipation of seeing landscapes I had never seen before, and of something waiting for me beyond them. And, along with it, just a little uncertainty. Perhaps putting on new clothes was a way of carrying both that anticipation and uncertainty with me, while taking one step closer to a version of myself I had yet to know.

 

As time passes, we experience many things and gradually continue to make choices about what to keep and what to let go of. We keep what we need and let go of what we can no longer carry, accumulating knowledge and experience along the way. There is a limit to how much one person can carry at once. And somewhere along the way, there are things we have unknowingly left behind. Among the things we discarded, there may have been the sparkle like stardust that I once held close to my heart as a boy, as well as the pure, innocent beauty and freshness of a flower scattering droplets of water after the rain. The time when I questioned nothing and was simply absorbed in whatever was in front of me. The feeling of trying to create something with my own hands, even while uncertain and lost within limited circumstances. I feel that such things truly existed.

 

Perhaps becoming an adult is not only about gaining something, but at the same time, about losing something along the way. But have the things we lost really disappeared?

 

In this collection, we projected ourselves onto the passage of time through which a boy transforms into an adult, and onto the process of gradually gathering and reclaiming the feelings that had become scattered along the way. The sparkle of those days that can only be found now that we have become adults. Touching once again the sensations we had forgotten, and searching for the boy who has remained within us. We feel that this is not about returning to the past, but about touching our own point of origin once again, while carrying with us all the time we have walked through until now.

 

The first things that came to mind were flowers and plants, shimmering stars, and motifs drawn from nature. By coincidence, there was a common thread in the environments in which we, the designers, Ikuto Kitamura and Saeko Ishii, grew up: flowers and plants. Flowers and plants naturally existed within the environments in which we were raised. Nature changing its appearance with the passing of the seasons. Looking back now, we feel that there was something in it that overlapped with the way human beings, too, gradually change their form as time passes.

 

As we began to remember our childhood, it naturally occurred to us that we wanted to shoot this collection in the land where Ishii grew up, where her family has been in the plant nursery business.

 

Since we were children, we have loved making things—not only clothes. Within limited materials and environments, we would think about what to make and how to give form to it, moving our hands forward even as we hesitated and wondered. Continuing to move our hands even without knowing whether what we were making would ever be completed. The anticipation and hope that something might be born from it. Looking back now, as we are both over thirty, we feel that there was a very pure sensation there—something that could be called the very origin of our approach to making things.

 

In this collection, as if tracing those memories, we focused on the element of handwork. Hand-applied bead embroidery by skilled artisans. Three-dimensional embroidery combining delicate machine embroidery with hand embroidery. An attempt to express sculptural, three-dimensional motifs through fabric and metal. Leaving behind the traces of each individual hand and the slightest irregularities, we translated these elements into designs that evoke the feeling of an atelier. We then combined them with our signature tailored styles and the structured silhouettes created through complex pattern making.

 

Something slightly imperfect within something orderly. The sensation of the boy we once were within ourselves as adults. What we have lost through the passing of time, and what can only be found because we have lived through that time.

 

To be a boy, again.

 

These words are not about returning to being a boy. They are words for us, now as adults, to find our former selves once again. To find once again that small sparkle that once existed deep within our hearts. And to remind ourselves that we are now standing within the future that the selves we once were had looked toward.

 

disemBySiiK

 

Ikuto Kitamura / Saeko Ishii

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