The Japanese label Auralee delivered a compact take on ready-to-wear for autumn-winter 2024: great clothes that are covetable, spark joy and are no-non-sense. The brand launched for the spring 2015 in Tokyo, and Ryota Iwai has been showing his collections on the calendar in Paris since 2019, but this is the first time he’s putting his clothes on the runway. When designing the new collection, Iwai considered specifically the hours in the evening when one is transitioning between working into simply living. “It’s that break after the first half of the day and the end of the day,” he explained. This, the way the designer sees it, is a time of brief anticipation. You’re going home from work, you’re about to have dinner with your friends, meet up with your family, run a couple of errands. Your clothes are lived-in, the properness and formality of the morning washed away by daily activity. While this collection captures that idea literally in a range of playful styling tricks – dry cleaning hangs over forearms, sweaters and coats peek out of overstuffed briefcases, gloves are held or stuffed in pockets rather than worn – it’s in the nuances of the materiality and cut in Iwai’s clothes where the ease of the end of day takes is conveyed best. There’s a ’90s feel to Iwai’s tailoring, but its proportions are distinctly contemporary: coats are streamlined and have extra long sleeves and hems, trousers pool over sneakers, and structured shoulder jackets appear hefty but are lightweight to touch. Most inviting is Iwai’s knitwear (made from either Mongolian cashmere or Peruvian alpaca), made to fit amply around the body, creating wrinkles and creases.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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