DESCENDANT

“DIRECTOR’S CUT” introduces six styles from the fall season’s DESCENDANT 2023 Autumn & Winter collection, each with the director’s behind the scenes stories.

JACKET: VENT NYLON JACKET
CUT&SEWN: GAUFRE WAFFLE LS
PANTS: SMOCK OXFORD TROUSERS CORDURA
HAT: CACHALOT 6PANEL

When I recently visited LA, a friend of a friend’s teenage son participated in the shoot for the Autumn collection. His name is Jay and he wore the “VENT” jacket, which is an updated version of the jacket DESCENDANT released in its earlier collections. There is an area called Ventura that is about an hour’s drive north of LA, and this jacket was created with the image of Ventura in mind. Jay’s long and curly hair really matched the image and era look I had in mind. I was able to see what I had envisioned because he wore the look.

JAKET: ROCKET OXFORD LS SHIRT CORDURA
PANTS: DC-3 ORGANIC COTTON TWILL TROUSERS
HAT: SKI BEANIE

The other guy is Noah, the son of a legendary surfer and artist. He is a skateboarder and is also a videographer. The jacquard ski knit cap with a cuff was something I wanted to see in a place where these were once very popular with kids like them. I thought the old man's style of tucked chino pants might not be very familiar to a young man, but he wore it perfectly in his own way. The shirt he is wearing is a pullover using Cordura® cotton nylon Oxford fabric and he seemed interested in the fabrics made from reliable and functional materials.

CUT&SEWN: SEMAPHORE CREW NECK
PANTS: DC-6 ORGANIC COTTON TWILL TROUSERS
HAT: DUTY BEANIE

Because of his long, curly blond hair, he overlaps with the image of Spicoli (Sean Penn), a character from the early 80’s movie “FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH.” I don’t think he was wearing it in the film, but seeing a sweatshirt with a colored collar like this one in a very richly colored environment is uplifting. The small details become very vivid.

JACKET: ALE WEATHER JACKET
PANTS: DC-6 GDT CORDUROY TROUSERS
HAT: DUTY BEANIE

Noah absolutely loved this jacket. It’s older man’s style derives from the British style of oiled coats and it was great to see an American teenager look at something classic and like it because of his free spirited nature. The same goes for the slack tailoring wide wale corduroy pants, which I think are the most old man style pants, but seeing him and Jay talking “how cool these pants were” was kinda cute.

CUT&SEWN: BUOY STRIPE POLO LS
PANTS: GALLEY DENIM TROUSERS
HAT: CETUS 6PANEL

These denim pants are categorized as a baggy silhouette at DESCENDANT, but Jay said they were skinny. Because of the environment he is in and how tall he is, these pants are considered slim for him. Also, when Noah saw the striped shirt that Jay was wearing, he said to him, "That's a nice stripe,'' as they passed each other, and even for them, there was something new about the broad stripes.

SHIRT: BRONSON ORGANIC COTTON TWILL LS SHIRT
PANTS: DC-6 GDT ORGANIC COTTON TWILL TROUSERS
HAT: DUTY BEANIE

The style coordination was created based on the image of work style, but when you look at what Noah is wearing, it doesn’t look like he is trying to imitate the worker’s style and is just wearing workwear rather than something coordinated for work. Which makes it look like “it suits you.” I saw a postman on the street during the shoot and the way he completely made the uniform his own was so fascinating that it caught my eye.

Like Noah and Jay, the more one wears DESCENDANT, the more it looks familiar to them. I think both of them immediately wore them with their own styles. I thought Noah’s hand had been injured while skateboarding, but when I asked him about it, he said it was a car accident, and what struck me was that he said, “it’s a little embarrassing.”

Spoken by Tetsu Nishiyama