NOIR: Hyperbolised Forms

Text by Billy De Luca

Kei Ninomiya’s treatment of the body as a canvas became abundantly clear this season at Paris Fashion Week. An askew shadow of the human form is all that remains. For SS23, whispers of English ruffs and crinoline were placed behind reimagined ruffles and shimmering tinsel. Victorian silhouettes are obscured and warped. Noir plays with no single design, choosing to interpret a conventional image in as many ways as possible. Noir’s founder, Kei Ninomiya, manages to cast together a collection that marches past the audience in a ballad for the eyes, tangible and alive.

Ninomiya uses space to the dramatic extreme. A trench coat covers the body as a harness wraps the torso with shining black flowers spreading out into the open air like splayed spider legs. Bags are clipped to jackets, and silver rings split black Hunter boots. Small straps wrap the chest and arms of a shirt like black keys on a curved piano. Bulging blue scourer-like tulle bushes and clumps around a body, growing like a teal fungus. Chains link together to create an illusion of a dress that is, in reality, not there.

Only a hint.

Cone-shaped coats cascade down, swivelling in circular descent and held by narrow roads of black tulle. Colourful handmade crowns rest regally atop white hair. They reach out as star-shaped leather patches are held by chain and coiled wires that barb and sparkle in a metallic light. Raw cotton tails fall like strands of synthetic hair, pluming down from wires held by a PVC dress that is nearly impossible to see behind the mass of white. Faces are opaque and hidden by protruding rubber that engulfs the body and the surrounding air. Yet, the structures walk by, casual-eyed yet alien like a mobile botanical garden, growing from waist to floor. The sew-free nature of construction is spectacular; snaps, grommets, and washers hold leather-like delicate nets rising out from an ocean of black frills and blue pleats. Exaggerated forms have never been outside the realm of Ninomiya’s style, with wires, tubes, and inorganic materials transforming into sinuous and serpentine organics.

Words will always struggle to suffice with collections like these. They must be observed and seen on repeat if time allows for it. There is a harmonious movement Ninomiya makes with his materials. They appear to bounce with life, each textile unique and tactile yet relatively supernatural. Unreal yet here. Now. Present.

Images courtesy of Comme des Garçons