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Hideaki Yoshihara and Yukiko Ode like to look back at the past, but it wouldn’t be right to call them sentimentalists. The Hyke designers have decades of experience reinterpreting old military workwear (indeed, that’s what they do best), and while their penchant for drawing on vintage staples can feel overly consistent, this season showed a willingness to push those boundaries.
True to form, they named the collection “Reminiscing.” Happily, it felt fresh, forward-looking, and relevant to contemporary life. Taking inspiration from “Amekaji,” the Japanese truncation of “American Casual,” the duo referenced the rugged workwear, knitted polos and ombré buffalo plaid shirts imported from America that were popular in Japan in the 1980s and ’90s, and made them their own.
Sharp pleated shorts were layered over wide-legged sheer black chiffon trousers that almost looked like mosquito nets—albeit very stylish mosquito nets—and rippled elegantly with each footstep. The shirt dresses and ribbed trousers were equally floaty, showing Ode and Yoshihara’s considerable prowess at making clothes that come to life in motion. “The movement was very important,” explained Ode during a walkthrough over a video call. “It takes a lot of trial and error to get that flow.”
Sprinkled throughout the collection were practical pieces from their ongoing collaboration with The North Face, which are sure to find lots of takers when they hit stores in spring. Ditto the asymmetric layered tank tops, crafted from a stretchy mesh fabric that can apparently only be made by the Japanese textile maker Ono Meriyasu.
Hyke is nothing if not pragmatic, and as usual these were clothes that would be at home pretty much anywhere you deigned to take them. In recent seasons it feels like we’ve given up on the elusive concept of “desk to dinner dressing” (surely nothing more than fashion journo froth in hindsight), but this latest showing from Hyke was basically that. It felt full of possibilities.
