After the passing of British artist Jamie Reid in August 2023, KIDILL’s artistic director, Hiroaki Sueyasu, knew the brand was going to use Reid as inspiration. Reid was known for creating the iconic covers and logos for the Sex Pistols and was connected with KIDILL since its Fall-Winter 2020 collection. “Jamie was my very starting point,” Sueyasu said.
Sueyasu adds, “The loss of something I believed would be in experience somewhat eternally is like a void; he was a stranger, but he was also portraying me. Even though Jamie and the other remarkable figures who created early punk have left us, it is our duty to ensure that the essence of punk, that has influenced our time and our people in countless ways, stays alive. I would like to offer my condolences inimitably,” declaring that ‘they are eternal.’
“Even if it’s categorized as a typical classic,” Sueyasu says that sometimes a completed style runs the risk of becoming the object of iconography, of being reproduced, consumed, and becoming reduced to a formality over time. On the other hand, he is convinced that stylized/conventional beauty will absorb the diversity of the trends of the time and will live on into the future while being reduced to the present. The preeminent theme for the Fall-Winter 2024 collection is not simple destruction or denial, but the positive energy of those who live in the same era continuing to reboot the “punk.”
The collection, with its DIY-inspired embellishments, prints, and jacquard weaves by Japanese artisans, is an exploration of the intersection of early punk classicism and modernity in design, silhouette, and the essence of detailing. Sueyasu dares the praises of “punk” through an array of excessive destructs, reviving of FOSTEXGARMENTS MA-1s, ripped denim, and vintage-washed-out cut-and-sewns/t-shirts/ tops.
The direct message of this season’s KIDILL collection lies in the basis of the half-century history of punk with its unchanging identity and attitude. It is no longer for only a specific group of people. Punk has long since departed from the insularity interpreted from its appearances/looks but has been inherited by many as a spirit of protest and rebellion of their own, driving the evolution of a modern, independent culture and becoming a value system that respects individuality through freedom and expression.
Sueyasu’s return to the roots is a channel of its origins, proclaiming the rebirth and renewal of KIDILL. “As a matter of fact, my initial impulse and resistance remains the same. I am just simple.”
