New York Fashion Week AW09: Akiko Ogawa

Posted by Carolyn

on February 15, 2009

A glance through Akiko Ogawa’s collection history shows that the designer’s taste has increasingly grown more masculine through the seasons. Contrast her 2006/7 collection of flowy feminine frocks with the geometrically structured shapes and sharp, double breasted blazers that ruled her AW08 show. Her AW09 collection goes even beyond simply masculine inspiration with models literally stomping the runway, and some looks so androgynous that my companion and I wouldn’t have been able to tell the sex had it not been for the tell tale shoes.

And some shoes those were! Ogawa matched each of her looks to chunky platform wedges reminiscent of Tokyo’s teenage street style of a few years ago. Though her choice of footwear is more military than bopper and more high fashion than high street, that instantaneous connection had me associating Ogawa’s collection as far more Eastern influenced than those of her Asian colleagues, Jason Wu or Alexander Wang.

The main colors of the collection were white, black, blue and grey, and Ogawa either featured them separately in solid pieces or blended together in ombre tones. Shape was mostly focused on broad tops contrasted with skinny bottoms and an overarching theme of asymmetry. Though most pieces would not translate well from runway to real way, Ogawa did present a particularly wearable blue halter mini dress (see below) that I am coveting for my own closet.