Collection Spring 2024

With our 45th anniversary in 2022 behind us, the second chapter of 45R’s story lies ahead. The question of what 45R should do next has become a constant preoccupation. This involves a reexamination of origins—both my own and the company’s. One theme this time is the Ivy look.

When I look back on my student years, when I began choosing my own outfits, all the clothes I loved best were Ivy. Navy blue three-button blazers, button-down Oxford shirts, cotton pants, regimental ties . . . I must have admired the simplicity, cleanliness, and refinement of American Trad. Since clothing is my life, you could call Ivy the origin of who I am as a person.

Ivy has its own unique forms and rules. These are the basis of clothing and style. Surveying contemporary fashion, I see no forms, no rules. Some might call this freedom, but to me it looks like rootlessness and instability. And it made me decide that now is precisely the right time to showcase to the world the solidity of the deep-rooted Ivy style.

What does Ivy become when filtered through the 45R sensibility? Indigo-dyed regimental ties, navy blue fleece blazers, buttonless button-downs . . . The fact that Ivy has these forms is what makes it possible to embrace them, deconstruct them, step outside them, play with them. And isn’t that kind of dialogue with form exactly what makes fashion fun?

Japan’s culture of Chanoyu, also known as the tea ceremony, is another example of dialogue with form. Alongside Ivy, tea is another theme for our spring collection. When we opened our New York store in 2000, we thought deeply about what “Japanese denim” truly meant. Ai Indigo dyeing was one answer, but we also employed imagery featuring barefoot models in denim, kneeling seiza-style in a tatami mat room. This is another important point of origin for us.

Kazumi Sakata, owner of Sakata Antiques until his passing last year, once held an exhibition of roof tiles from the Joseon Dynasty lined up on a wooden floor. It was startling and spectacular. One day, I would like to try arranging folded denim in a line along a tatami floor. That, too, would be a dialogue with form.