Collection: Jun Takahashi
Jun Takahashi, founder & head designer of the cult Japanese label "Undercover" is renowned for his unique sense of street fashion & his use of obscure/wonderful references ranging from, taxidermy, punk rock, Japanese Manga art & even flower bouquets. The undercover label would receive praise from world-renowned designers such as Rei Kawakubo & Miuccia Prada.
Started the label in 1991 while studying Fashion Design at the Bunka Academy of Fashion. Along with help from his friend Nigo. It would mark the beginning of a new era. From there on out Jun Takahashi would begin to revolutionize the fashion scene in Tokyo & around the world ingraining himself in the Japanese fashion scene as a designer leading a new generation. The amount of influence that has been instilled into the fashion scene by Jun Takahashi is still seen till the present date in the early 2020s.
Born & raised in 1969 in the city of Kiryu, Gunma, Takahashi from a young age would show attraction towards fine complexities in garments. Which would translate into his life as he jumped right into Fashion school upon graduation from High school. He would then refine & polish his skills while studying at the Fashion Design at the Bunka Academy of Fashion along with influence from his friends Nigo & Hiroshi Fujiwara. Upon graduation from there on out Takahashi would continue to work on his label undercover until finally sharing with the world his first official runway show with his debut appearance in 2002 at Paris Fashion Week.
That is when we would see some of Takahashi's true potential as a designer when he showed some of his biggest influences through his involvement as a Punk Rocker & from his boy band "Tokyo Sex Pistols". Shocking the world while touching on topics in his runway that no other designer would delve into. As he would continue to evolve as a designer, we would get to see more parts of his influence’s parts of his lifestyle spill into the runways. Looking at the Spring/Summer 2006 Klaus collection which was influenced by German progressive rock bands & fictional characters to the Autumn/Winter 21-22 collection which was heavily inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion an anime that aired in the late 90s.
Jun Takahashi continues to this day to dive deeper into his influences & continues to show how he can seamlessly incorporate them into the runways & ready to wear collections together. Being influenced by designers such as Rei Kawakubo & Martin Margiela we see bits of this continuously being shown throughout his collections.
