Setchu debuts with Tokyo in the Arno

The fiercely independent house Setchu made its debut on the Pitti runway on Thursday, even as its founder Satoshi Kuwata emphasized that this “Tokyo on the Arno” collection would be his first and last show.

A very clever combination of the disparate influences of the Japanese-born Satoshi, where kimonos met Savile Row and Japanese iconography rubbed up against European milieu – this was a thought-provoking collection that is sure to be one of the best fashion statements of the season.

Presented within the National Library of Florence, on the banks of the Arno, strangely almost devoid of actual books, this peculiarly timeless collection opened with a delicately distorted English aristocratic elegance.

A noble but unconventional couple with almost matching fine wool dresses and dark gray tartan pants and skirt. Totally summarizing Satoshi's dialectical work.

Trained by Huntsman and Davies & Sons (the latter being Savile Row's oldest tailor), Satoshi is an excellent pattern cutter, a skill few of his contemporaries will ever achieve. Combine this skill with an intriguing Japanese obsession with folds. At a pre-show performance, he even folded a jacket into a fancy cardboard box, something a Westerner would only do with a shirt. She also injects wrinkles into most looks, an idea borrowed from her home country.

“Normally you don't want a garment to have wrinkles, but in a kimono the beauty is in the wrinkle on the shoulder,” Satoshi explained.

You had to love his gentlemanly blazers (again worn by a girl and a boy) with built-in pleats, or a brilliant trilogy of classic blue men's shirts with creases. A cut out halter neck party dress was totally sexy and cool. And worn by a model, with a mini black fish cut out over the mouth.

Like many Asian designers, Satoshi loves to go fishing. Yohji Yamamoto fishes throughout the Pacific; John Rocha loves to fish in Alaska or the Bering Sea; Kuwata throws a snapper off Japan.

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Expressing his desire to try new territories, such as his deconstructed pale gray knit blended sweatshirts and sweatpants; Kimono jacket sets; pale gray denim made of denim and paper or their elegant military leather peacoats, finished with thick lace.

Suddenly changing gears with some fancy multicolored Mongolian lamb coats; and a silk jacquard jacket from Tale of Genji with a print of an excited octopus hugging a geisha. The print and image that inspired it are part of an expanded installation revealed upstairs after the show that included shoe trees; neck details; jackets neatly folded in brown boxes; Hyper-precise fashion sketches and solar system drawings from the 16th century.

“Our focus is not fashion. We try to create a culture,” insisted Satoshi, winner of the 2023 LVMH Prize.

In short, Setchu, based in Milan, is today one of the most original fashion brands. Cerebral, cunning, artistically elegant, intelligent and commercial. Ask Hirofumi Kurino, Asia's most influential menswear buyer, who shops the total Setchu look for his major United Arrows flagships in Tokyo.

The East-meets-West moment continued at a post-show dinner, at a charmingly renovated farmhouse in the hills above Florence, where Japanese dishes like shrimp dumplings with porcini mushrooms were followed by Tuscan tagliata with yuzu sauce.

Indeed, Tokyo next to the Arno.