H&M spring-summer 2018

H&M staged its annual see-now-buy-now Spring show in Paris tonight amid the city’s Fall presentations. With Japan as the starting point of the collection, one of the grand halls of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs was converted into a giant ryokan, complete with mega paper lanterns, tatami mats, and geta socks for hundreds. A dinner of sushi, sashimi, miso soup, and little bites was served, and sake flowed, although, not quite fast enough. The Dancing Strawhatz, a performance trio from Japan who appear completely masked, did a short dance, and paper cherry blossoms fell from the ceiling at the finale.

After all that, would you believe that the clothes barely read as Japanese at all? Well, they didn’t, and that’s probably not a bad thing. Last month, H&M issued a public apology after its online advertisement featuring a black boy modeling a sweatshirt reading “coolest monkey in the jungle” prompted outrage for its blatant racism. A literal reading of traditional Japanese clothing could’ve proved problematic. As it was, bright graphic prints and tone-on-tone jacquards were modeled after Japanese katakana, but the alphabet was so abstracted, the reference point wasn’t immediately apparent. “We tried to keep it conceptual,” said Andreas Lowenstam, who heads up menswear. This was a mostly minimal show with shades of Céline and nods to current trends like the poncho, flares, and fringe, both silk and crystal.

It was also a feel-good show, and what that boiled down to was the models’ smiles. Joan Smalls and Winnie Harlow whooped and hollered for Yasmin Wijnaldum as she sauntered by, and when Adwoa Aboah rounded the bend of the celebrities’ table, she high-fived someone. Was it the older brother from Stranger Things? Ruth Wilson? From where we were sitting, we couldn’t be sure. “We told them, ‘We’re H&M, you have to smile,’ ” said head of design and creative director Pernilla Wohlfahrt. Why other designers don’t encourage the same is one of fashion’s most persistent (and sad) mysteries.