admin Was the first look a camp executioner, BDSM ballerina, or dark fencer? The abstract intricacy of Kei Ninomiya’s artistry defies characterization: it’s a mood. This collection contained a broody heart-to-heart between metal and skin, accented by the metal-plating makeup that bloomed across the models’ faces (when unshrouded) and visible if you looked at the gleaming saw-edged metal strips and braces clips that tethered together the leather and fabric outfits. The guttural soundtrack—a sort of inchoate whale song—was perfectly chosen.
After that opener, the first section seemed to embark on a dark subversion of masculine evening wear. The black and white of night attire was pulled inside and out, then totally reimagined in looks that exposed the architecture rather than the facade. Elastic braces of an almost baroque level of complication trellised tulle shirts and skirts, harnesses and an inside-out tuxedo. There was a comprehensively crashed and customized biker jacket, of course. The striped socks that accented some looks were almost comically conventional, Pippi Longstocking curveballs.
A “dress” made of white frilled and sometimes black tulle-edged collars and cuffs signaled the shift towards Ninomiya’s signature metier: the creation of visible auras. These demanded metaphors, variously resembling loofahs, minimalist flower arrangements, kitchen scourers, callistemon plants, or a magician’s puffs of smoke. They were mesmerizing to watch pass, and represented a return to Ninomiya’s Noir origins: the color of the last few seasons was gone. This designer inhabits his own space, and lots of it. This was another technically dizzying, imaginative tour de force.
