“Plainsong” was the name Takahiro Miyashita gave this spring collection for The Soloist, which he intended as a smartened-up rebellion against the slobishness of fashion today. “These days, it seems that clothes are worn carelessly by many people,” he wrote in the collection notes. To make his point, he purposefully avoided using any socks or jewelry in the lookbook images, forwent anything oversized, and made sure each shirt and jacket was buttoned or zipped up to the top.
The collection marked the first time the designer had ever made short sleeved shirts (Tokyo’s suffocatingly hot summer can no longer be endured in long sleeves). Aloha shirts were decorated with winding scores of sheet music, as well as a psychobilly-esque leopard print. The meat and potatoes of the collection, however, was an expansion of Miyashita’s enduring anglophilia; it unfolded in a palette of crimson and black, and partly served as an homage to the late British stylist Judy Blame.
“Not many people may know, but Judy and I were good friends…he was like an older brother to me,” Miyashita wrote. The two of them would sometimes drink together at Blame’s home in London, and Miyashita would always marvel at Blame’s sense of style. And so the Japanese designer distilled his friend’s punkishly polished essence through his own unique filter.
Blame’s signature smattering of buttons appeared across the sides and sleeves of blazers and Harrington jackets, as well as the tops of Blame-ish berets. “It might be said that Judy possessed me, or perhaps I wanted to embody him,” Miyashita added. Elsewhere, gold military shank buttons cast with original Soloist insignia jangled gently on coats and blazers (some had as many as 300), while others were festooned with ribbons or covered with embroidered heraldic badges. It was part punk, part marching band; buttoned-up yet bad-boyish, and a fitting tribute.
Miyashita’s tailoring, fabric choice, and silhouettes are always meticulous, and the rigor of the collection and styling allowed his talents to shine. Sensitivity to the finest detail; that’s what makes The Soloist special. Under the collar of the tailored coats, the designer took the time to add a strip of leather to reinforce them, along with an accompanying strip of plush pinkish velvet on the inside. It’s no doubt something that Blame himself would have appreciated.