Arab News Japan

Anrealage Japanese designer Kunihiko Morinaga unveiled the power of fashion and technology at the Autumn-Winter Paris Fashion Week, 2023-2024 held at the Théâtre de la Madeleine, with light-sensitive color-changing garments.

Switching up the traditional fashion runway format, the show began with models wearing similar garments, most of which were white, standing adjacent to each other on stage. Two UV-emitting bars were then lowered in front of the models and as the light shed on the garments, they transformed to reveal varying patterns and tones. Instead of walking towards the end of the stage to showcase the back of the garments, the models simply turned around and the UV-emitting bars were lowered once again to expose the design.

Morinaga is no stranger to the convergence of both of these seemingly unrelated worlds. Having began incorporating such properties into his designs almost a decade ago, he almost routinely resorts back to technology to provide a unique, innovative perspective of what could constitute as fashion. However, this was the first time that Morinaga used this technology in faux fur, satins, velvet, lace, jacquards and knits. It was also the first time it was used to reveal colors such as red, purple and yellow.

The inspiration behind the show was derived from the theory of Umwelt, a German word for environment that was advocated by the nineteenth century German biologist Jakob Johann von Uexküll. Umwelt denotes the idea that an organism’s perception of the environment is defined by their ability to perceive. The show metaphorically reflects a wider concept as it demonstrates how things are not always what they appear to be and how perspectives could change if put under a different light, in the same manner that the garments transform under UV-light.