As a designer subject to mood swings, Junya Watanabe sometimes vacillates between bright and buoyant and dark and powerful, though his taste for dramatic draping, bunching and head-scratching construction seems never to waiver. What does is Watanabe’s way into the motif, which for this very dark and altogether incredible fall collection was the most basic and mass of winter utility: the puffy down jacket.


    Recent seasons have seen several designers take on the puffer as a lucrative side gig but none has managed the wonders that Watanabe created here. He worked quilted down rings and panels, all in black, into a range of silhouettes from dress coats to cocooned capes, much of it done in with Victorian flavor. Along the way came all of Watanabe’s quirky signatures.

There were swaddling wrapped coats, outsize collars and some remarkable convertible styles, one which started as a poufy wrap and folded down into a long coat that was trim and tailored with a peter pan collar on top and A-shaped below.


    Watanabe stripped away the puff pieces and replaced them with grandeur and emotion, heightened by the soundtrack — Puccini’s Madame Butterfly and Tosca — and models with painted faces and piles of ratted, raven Marie Antoinette locks. Indeed, there was something royal about the series of elaborately ruched and bunched dresses, vests and majestic robes strung up on thick gold chains. Less voluminous but just as compelling were the draped and knotted skirts and dresses, some done in shimmering gold shrouded in black silk tulle, like a beautiful mourning attire.