UNDERCOVER SS23 Slashes the Stereotype
Cutting through gender conventions with rips, zips and camo-like floral cut-outs.
Jun Takahashi‘s UNDERCOVER never fails to deliver with a runway show. For Fall/Winter 2022, the designer returned after four years with a steamy, dark and sensual bang, serving darkness on the catwalk. His menswear, however, is often punctuated with playfulness and a sense of humor, and eventually, these two words find similarities in looks that don’t just cross genres, but often gender boundaries.
For Spring/Summer 2023, UNDERCOVER is back on the official Paris Fashion Week womenswear schedule. The SS23 show, which was set in the historic American Cathedral in Paris, formally known as the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, saw Takahashi return to form. A big focus was put on everyday staples that didn’t fall into one single gender, with jeans riding high and sitting on the leg in a billowing formation. Likewise, workwear cues informed darker denim, soon translating into high-shine satin bomber jackets complete with bows tied on the rear. This subversion of traditions, specifically ones attached to genders, became a familiar theme throughout the collection as trench coats were spliced on the neck and adorned with flowers and beads of pearls. Similarly, collegiate sweaters and tees were slashed across their chest-facing monikers, while a particularly standout leather jacket used zippers to recreate the slashed aesthetic.
For UNDERCOVER’s crescendo, the label presented orbital figures fit in the guise of dresses, each puffy and voluminous. Metallic green crinkled (almost plastic-like) fabrics absorbed the body and referred back to previous dresses, while the final floral piece, cut out with distressing, clashed with the sophistication before it.
Look at the SS23 collection from UNDERCOVER above, and check out more Paris Fashion Week SS23 content on Hypebeast over the next few days.
In case you missed it, check out YSL’s showstopping runway.
