APUJAN
Words by: Liv Barrett
@oliviabarrett__
After a three year pandemic induced hiatus, Taiwanese, London-based designer APUJAN has returned to London fashion week to debut a hotly anticipated runway show. Founded in 2013 by designer, Apu Jan, the brand sets out to illustrate elaborate themes and concepts through their integration of varied knitting techniques along with interesting patterns.
APUJAN’s SS24 show, titled “The Casebook of Kaiju” certainly set out to be an opulent affair, offering both an extravagant show space at the iconic Somerset House and a richly textured backstory. The recent collection was detailed as being conceptually inspired by the eve of a monster’s attack. The monster takes on multiple forms in the mind’s of the people, with some looks referencing the plethora of aesthetics associated with monstrous qualities. Other looks set out to represent the news reports documenting the anticipated attack, the tanks that would serve to defend citizens, and the protective clothing worn by emergency teams.
Understandably, APUJAN is not trying to make costumes. These elaborate references and representations were going to be exhibited in the same mostly wearable style that we are used to APUJAN presenting. And yet, something about it just fell flat. The headpieces and accessories were doing the heavy lifting in relaying the richly textured back story, with bags and headpieces that were theatrical enough to effectively convey the admittedly gripping backstory. Grand headpieces included wire cages adorned with flowers, ranging from pinks and blues to warm, natural whites.
These pieces covered the entire heads of the models and created a truly striking visual effect. In opening the show with a flowering headpiece, admittedly, I was eager to see a continuation of that introductory theatre. And yet, as the rest of the collection followed, there was something so lacklustre about the looks that were presented. Aside from the headpieces, one of which included an imposing, sturdy film camera, clearly representing the media documentation of the imminent monster attack, the actual clothes simply lacked imagination.
It was simple enough to decipher which looks were meant to represent the monster and which were meant to represent the events surrounding the attacks. However, the innate design of the collection was simply lacking and overall could have been pushed further and in more imaginative directions, whilst still being wholly wearable.
Jagged edges were used on both a petrol blue tailored skirt suit and a scarlett velvet evening wear co-ord. Similar to the spinal spikes on a stegosaurus, the pieces were of course emulating the physical aesthetics typically attributed to monsters. Other looks used to reference the anonymous monster included caged effects on tops and dresses and jagged velvet panels across mesh dresses. The harsh lines and deep colours very clearly illustrated the story of the monster, and yet the lack of variation and imagination meant that this elaborate description of a monster that we received in the press release, didn’t live up to its terrifying imagery.
The textures were flat and the caged effects felt like a meagre attempt at the avant-garde. Whilst the accessories and the headpieces were unique and intriguing in their portrayal of the monster, with another headpiece being constructed as a titanium geometric shark, the clothes themselves were uninteresting in their storytelling techniques.
As for the protective clothing and media representations of the incoming attack, these once again succeeded in telling the story, but in an entirely on-the-nose way. A backpack, knitted two piece, and long structured jacket all featured black and white mandarin, emulating newspaper reports detailing the terror of the monster’s impending arrival. And the protective clothing included a white and blue hazmat boiler suit, paired with a pair of white Adidas Sambas and a glowing head torch. Whilst these looks succeed in relaying the elaborate backstory, they were far from elaborate in their basic design.
I’d implore APUJAN to give their audience the benefit of the doubt, we don’t need to be spoon fed truly exciting concepts with truly simplified designs. In pushing his designs further Apu Jan could achieve a truly exciting feat in being a conceptual, but wearable brand. But for now, the lack of imagination debuted ensured that the collection simply did not live up to the story that we were initially told.