After last season’s Anrealage collection went viral, Kunihiko Morinaga’s color-changing collection was spectacularly worn by Beyoncé during her Renaissance tour. The light of that global exposure hit Morinaga´s house at precisely the right moment: at the same time, under the name ANVISUAL, he trademarked the technology he has been developing for over a decade to incorporate the photochromic properties into fabrics that enable it to change color when hit by UV.
“Now we want to develop this business,” said Morinaga backstage before his show. Evidence of that was the eyewear collaboration, oversized and vintage looking, with X8, which, like most of the accessories in this show, had been given the ANVISUAL treatment. Another collaboration with a significant Italian label will be announced for next year.
Last year’s line-up was so striking because UV light was applied to Morinaga’s looks in a quick top-to-bottom burst that changed the garments’ color in an instant—and so intensely that many Instagram commentators were misguidedly concerned that the models were at risk. This presentation saw the light applied more slowly, yet it was still potentially just a little unsettling, as new technologies so often are.
The models came out singly or in pairs in double layered looks; all-white Angrealage bodysuits under more voluminous transparent PVC garments in various shapes, some lined with strips of fabric or squares of crochet. Bags, boots and loafers were also made in the house’s new PVC, which Morinaga said was not only photochromatic but phthalate-free and therefore (relatively) environmentally friendly. Once they had been photographed in this all-white and transparent apparel, the models stood on a turntable set into the floor: this rotated, allowing the banks of UV and other lights in the gantry above to illuminate the garments—which of course changed color.
What was impressive today was how the formerly transparent PVC immediately acquired the opaque visual solidity of color. You could see this having applications not only in clothing, but in architecture—a flash of UV could make a see-through window instantly “covered” and spell curtains for the curtains industry. The slower application of the light meant you could see the garments and accessories acquiring their colors as they rotated on the turntable like popcorn in a microwave. There was a fly buzzing around the room in YOYO (a space often used by Rick Owens as backstage), and every time the lights were illuminated it zoomed with gusto towards them, before backing off as they dimmed.
The collection teased at a new relationship between the time taken for color to bloom and then fade. Morinaga was interested in using the empty space between his body suits and PVC outer-layer as a kind of visible/invisible cladding—an atmosphere—of worn personal environment. Elsewhere he incorporated more conventionally color-filtered lights to mess with the impact made by the garments on the visible spectrum, prompting the crochet paneled garments to apparently change from one color to another.
Morinaga and his fellow Anrealage pioneers have carved a distinct and exciting niche in garment technology: the challenge now is how to export it from the stage or the runway onto the sidewalk. But this was another mesmerizing show of chameleon clothing.