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THURSDAY NEWSLETTER FROM ANDREA BATILLA

PARIS MEN’S FASHION WEEK JANUARY 2025

Saying that streetwear is dead is like saying cinema or poetry are dead. These statements arise when we fail to explain a phenomenon or a shift or more precisely, when we refuse to understand the deeper reasons behind a change. Streetwear cannot die because it is a way of conceiving clothing that has been rooted in our society for a century or more.

By now, it is also difficult to maintain a clear separation between classic formal wear and streetwear or sportswear or workwear. Although some still attempt to keep them distinct, their fusion is an unstoppable process.

It is undeniable that streetwear experienced a commercial bubble and that figures like Virgil Abloh emerged with such powerful communication skills that they overshadowed everything before and part of what followed. But it is also true that things have now returned to a more natural state and the healthy dialogue between high and low fashion, between formal and leisurewear, has settled into a dynamic balance.

This dynamism is especially evident when comparing the European design approach with the Japanese one. While Western designers, as we saw in Milan, are trying to energize men’s formal wear by adapting it to current times and moving it away from displays of machismo, Japanese brands, historically close to streetwear, are taking a reverse journey into authenticity.

Japanese fashion has always explored the relationship that Japanese culture has developed with Western culture over the decades. It is a long and complex history and if you want to know more, I highly recommend reading the incredible book Ametora by David Marx, which details this evolution.

In general, it can be said that for several historical reasons, starting after World War II, Japan became a privileged observer of Western aesthetics, especially in fashion. The insularity and physical and cultural distance of Japanese designers allowed them to have a perspective that was simultaneously respectful and critical of Western fashion history.

While Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo dissected women’s fashion, deconstructing and rebuilding it, designers like Jun Takahashi with Undercover and Nigo with A Bathing Ape explored men’s fashion in its entirety, from formal wear to technical sportswear and, of course, the vast world of streetwear.

Historically, they have drawn from two different clothing systems: Ivy League and Heavy Duty, which today we would call formal wear and workwear. These concepts did not exist in Japan before being imported from the United States. What we see today is the result of a long, in-depth reinterpretation of a way of dressing and living that has been approached like an ornithological study: from a distance, in silence, with love and great attention.