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Posh and playful
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The usually sleek and chic Moncler jacket is getting a cheeky makeover. Whimsical Los Angeles artist duo FriendsWithYou have pepped up the Italian label's down-filled outerwear with their trademark exuberant colours and playful icons in a new capsule collection.
An exclusive preview of the range, which includes T-shirts, sweatshirts, sneakers and bags, was held at the new Moncler flagship in Tokyo's Ginza district on Oct 24. It will be rolled out to all other Moncler stores next year for the 2016 fall/winter season.
Mr Remo Ruffini, the luxury label's chairman, chief executive and creative director, said of the collection: "I realised we needed something younger, something much more pop, something with humour. I thought FriendsWithYou would be interesting for that."
While some market watchers and investors might be concerned that Moncler's business revolves around one product that is worn mainly during one season each year - its quilted winter jacket - Mr Ruffini has been cleverly tapping new markets and turbocharging the brand through canny collaborations over the years.
The diverse brands and personalities Moncler has worked with include storied French fashion house Balenciaga, cult Japanese brand Mastermind Japan, German luxury luggage maker Rimowa and American singer-songwriter Pharrell Williams.
In September, Canada-born designer Erdem Moralioglu unveiled a limited tie-up collection that some critics lauded as both dramatic and romantic.
FriendsWithYou, known for their fantastical large-scale installations bursting with bright hues and inflatable shapes, inject a markedly different flavour.
Samuel Borkson, 36, one-half of the artist duo, said: "I was excited that we could do something very high-end and also very playful. I thought if we could mix the two nicely, we would have reached our goal."
There were limitations to the medium, though, said his other working half, Arturo Sandoval III, 39. "There's just so much you can do with jackets and stuff," the father of one noted. "But the freedom comes from Moncler wanting to apply our iconography. They were very open to us sharing a wide range of things."
There is Cloudy the white puffy cloud; Happy Virus the yellow smiley face; Malfi the penguin; Mr TTT, a fluorescent pill-shaped rainbow; a pair of googly eyes named Look Who Is Talking; and the roly-poly Snowman.
These kawaii pop-art motifs are showcased to best effect on the reversible down jackets. One side features a single patch of an icon, while the other sees the same motif plastered all over, as if with unbridled glee.
The contrast sums up neatly the marriage between Moncler's stealth-wealth aesthetics and FriendsWithYou's brand of accessible art that makes one smile.
"It's wearable art that is fun," Borkson pronounced with a grin.