Junya Watanabe Revives My Memory

For the first 10 years of my life I lived in New Zealand, in a part of the North Island called the Waitakere Ranges which is basically dense bushland with black sand beaches along the coastline and farms further inland. It's like a layer cake, beach, bush, farm. I was lucky enough to be raised in the middle of the bush (I suppose some countries call it forest or...woodlands?). My Australian friends don't really understand my attachment to NZ, but as an insanely imaginative child with no television I had a lot of time to bond and fall in love with my surroundings. There were creeks, waterfalls, trees with trunks so large I couldn't hope to wrap my arms around them, hills to jump off, ropes strung over tree branches to swing from and 2 dogs and a cat to accompany me on my adventures. I used to make little dresses out of fern fronds and leaves and tuck all sorts of flora into my hair. I think because of that upbringing I have a tendency towards never wearing shoes and getting madly excited by anything with an organic, earthy air about it which is why Junya Watanabe's collection has struck such a chord with me. It looks like a memory. I can practically smell the dried flowers and the wind dried scent of the broderie anglais. I want to go into the wild, paint black stripes on my skin and wear layer upon layer of pretty picnic table fabrics. Oh sigh.