If you didn’t know CFCL was a knitwear brand, you could imagine the sculptural coats that opened the show were cut from felt, later dresses out of velvet or even jersey.
But Yusuke Takahashi isn’t about to change his six-year-old label’s main material or its sustainably minded raison d’être. Just ahead of the March shows, the company completed its recertification as a B Corp — with the highest score among Japanese fashion brands, mind you, the designer told WWD during a preview appointment.
You didn’t need to know that either to enjoy a fall lineup inspired by German artist Joseph Beuys and the theory of social sculptures, which considers everything is art and has the power to affect change.
Beuys’ felt work informed the opening section’s generous volumes used for outerwear. These softened into draped column dresses or trousers with a folded panel on one leg and appeared as off-kilter ripples on the brand’s bestselling Pottery dresses. Sneakers came as part of an ongoing collaboration with fellow B-Corp Veja.
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In a preview, there’s a textile-nerd thrill to hear Takahashi explain new yarn developments that included a wool-cashmere yarn blend or to experience the drape and stretch of one that played on cupro.
Equally eye-catching was an abstract foil-printed motif nodding to the artist’s 7,000 Oaks work, a first for CFCL. It turned long and lean gowns, skater dresses and slacks into dressier options, a direction more prominent this season. Such options also included evening-ready hand-tufted numbers.
CFCL’s fall collection might not change the world, but it can certainly shift the perception of knitwear away from a daywear-only material.
Meanwhile, the brand’s retail footprint is growing, with its ninth boutique due to open in Tokyo’s Ginza area in April. Internationally, plans for its South Korea store are well underway and a second chapter to its Selfridges pop-up will kick in this summer. Soft power indeed.