COLLECTION / Hachi Balmung AW 14

 Hachi Balmung 

// Designers who cull their deepest inspirations from their culture could only provide us the best bird's eye view of what their world is like. Like Hachi, he particularly condensed the psychedelic hurly burly energy of Tokyo. There's always a sense of recurrence and newness which made me realize that this collection is such. A compendium of repeated elements with introductions to new ones too. That is how consumers think: they want something old and new at the same time. 

From the moment I saw Hachi's teaser on his Instagram , I had to coax him on sending me  the lookbook ASAP. What he did was kind enough. He sent me like 500+ photos of the lookbook and editorial. I would want to show them all here however I wanted to zoom in my favorites and here they are. When I discovered Balmung in 2011, I was perplexed by the limitless exploration of silhouettes and then I realized "wow, big shirts look amazing afterall" and he was one of the influences I look up to. His designs are a marriage of mundane and mystical. The kind of clothes you feel powerful and normal at the same time " Yes it's a hoodie jacket with just some crazy patterns and neoprene patches and oversized sleeves and it's by the great Hachi , thank you very much." 

Please do check his site