The Ungainly Beauty of Pillings: A Blend of Fantasy and Reality

Maybe it’s the mire of AI slop we’re living through, but the ungainly beauty of Pillings feels more disarmingly human than ever. In the brand’s purposefully wonky pieces—many of which are hand-knitted—every groove or flaw has been considered, every crease carefully carved.

This season’s show took place in a low-ceilinged conference hall on the 12th floor of the Tokyo Kotsu Kaikan, an old-fashioned shopping center in Ginza which Ryota Murakami had chosen for its nostalgic, slightly claustrophobic feel.

It unfolded as an exercise in shape to the soundtrack of stilted piano music. Knits were stretched out over crinolines into dramatic sculpted princess dresses, and a teal crochet dress had its shoulders shifted forward in an intentional hunch. Frumpy-looking cardigans were buttoned up asymmetrically, or had lumps stuffed on the hip. Thick wool coats and skirts were hitched up in complications of crumples. Glossy coated leather moved like cardboard. More dressed-up than in recent seasons, the collection retained the endearing gawkiness the brand is known for.

The mixture of fairytale dresses and disheveled everyday pieces was Murakami’s way of blending fantasy and reality. “I wanted to evoke the feeling you get when you look at clothing from a bird’s eye view,” he said backstage afterwards. “I think we live in an age where people tend to prefer things that are clear-cut or have a definite answer, but I think one of the roles of creation is to expand that vague, gray area, and to find new value there.”

The colors—swampy greens, scholastic blues, washed pinks—were also intentionally nebulous. “I wanted colors that you wouldn’t see in a box of crayons, so I picked vague colors that don’t seem to have names,” he said. “The way I describe them is rotten pastels.” The details were too many to count: tiny knitted flowers sprouted through the grooves in cable knits; the back of a pristine white blazer artfully creased like a bedsheet; the toes of shoes rumpled like they’d been left in the rain.

In the stiff silhouettes and knobbly knits this time particularly were echoes of Miuccia Prada and Rei Kawakubo: Prada’s knack for making awkward beauty feel magnetic, and Kawakubo’s balance of tenderness and power expressed through the avant-garde. Certainly, Pillings builds more confidence with each outing. From this season, it will be available for the first time at overseas retailers including Dover Street Market London, which feels like a natural fit.

For further evidence of Murakami’s consummate sensitivity, see the stripy knitted skirt suit that appeared halfway through the show, which mirrored the unremarkable carpet in the very room the show took place in. Murakami had noticed it immediately, and turned it into something beautiful.