In anticipation of the upcoming Lemaire x Uniqlo collaboration, Elle spoke to Uniqlo's head of research and design, Yuki Katsuta, about how how these designer ideas move from an idea to the books. I don't know about you, but I quite enjoy learning about how the sausage gets made, so to speak. Unless it's actual sausage. Then I could do without the finer details and jump right ahead to eating that shit.
This isn't anything super shocking, but we get a taste of how a big company like Uniqlo moves and a taste of what's to come. In this case, the partnership is officially called "Uniqlo and Lemaire" and will apparently make us question the whole designer-meets-fast-fashion collaboration game with an entirely new look. While Uniqlo is a fast fashion empire, these sorts of partnerships are anything but. The two parties started on the project over a year ago and functions closer to a luxury brand's, Katsuta says. He also says it will be nothing like anything we've seen from Lemaire before.
What could that really mean though? What sort of latitude and freedom does Christophe and co. really have here, especially if they're trying so hard to be so different? For the most part, Lemaire's work is pretty utilitarian with an added elegance, which matches up with Uniqlo well. Fortunately, these collaborations definitely speak more to our audience, who is actually paying attention to the designer lineup at Uniqlo as oppose to, say, the general public. Meaning, it would be pretty fucking dope to see an iteration of the F/W 15 cape/poncho in Uniqlo. Either way, we already know this shit is going to be fire when it eventually drops this fall.
