SS02 Junya Watanabe ‘Ransom Note’ Graphic Camp Collar Shirt

Junya Watanabe’s Spring 2002 show titled “Poem” explored love in different ways. The designer walked an array of tragic confessions, abstract stanzas and few-word phrases like “watermelon” and “german dog”, pushing emphasis on the contrast between each author’s emotional viewpoints. Enlisting the tailors, pattern makers and staff who helped in bringing the collection to life, Watanabe instructed they depict their thoughts through brief poems. As a result, each stanza is inherently unique and personal to the author, with sincerity and authenticity, reinforced by the subtly broken English in which it was translated to. Despite rather minimal garments, the poems are insightful themselves, speaking for the items they’re bestowed upon. Not only are they captivating, but honest, spoken from people, to people.

Debuting in the Spring of 2002, the so-called ‘Ransom’ camp collar is widely regarded as the most lucrative item of the poem collection. The concept draws from traditional ransom notes, using mixed media to patch and print a series of letters atop a white camp collar base. In turn making the criminal’s handwriting untraceable, the magazine print is altered to depict the words of doomsday philosophers and would-be romantics. In pristine condition throughout, this pieces comes as a boxy size medium.