Fashion designer Giuliano Calza presented GCDS’ Spring Summer 2020 K-HAWAII collection, on Saturday, September 21st, during the recently wrapped up Milan Fashion Week. Inspired by the fascinating world of kawaii and the tropical paradise of Hawaii island, K-Hawaii represents the next evolution.
Spring Summer 2020 Womenswear
GCDS presents summertime seduction, where Kawaii is cute and at the same time sexy. This futuristic take on manga touches on the very concepts that formed the genre: a careful balance of suspense and humor, regulation versus fantasy, and idealized love featuring over-stylized and over-sexualized heroines.
Kawaii is represented by iconic pop symbols from The Care Bears to Hello Kitty, with vibrant colors and playful prints, all fused together by Anna Trevelyan’s styling. The juxtaposition of Jurassic Park (filmed in Hawaii) with Kawaii: cute but deadly. The same goes for our eyewear, expertly crafted by The Marcolin Group. GCDS began its partnership with the leading worldwide eyewear company who exclusively created iconic sunglass styles for the show: a perfect combination of irony, experimentation and streetstyle. Lastly, all our hair styling is arranged by Syd Hayes, and makeup by Erin Parson.
Manga seeks to represent certain aspirations in a particular society, cultural evolutions we strive to achieve. Self-identity and forced standards are morphing us into hentai manga characters rather than something realistic. Everything we see online today – filtering, makeup, and contouring – is exactly what you get from a K-Hawaii manga aesthetic: a sugar-coated candy character. Social media’s infinite scale and ubiquitous presence in daily life should lead us to seek the niche, and yet in some ways we become more homogenous, both culturally and aesthetically.
