For Spring Summer 2026, Kunihiko Morinaga’s Anrealage collection pulses with energy, embodying a life force that marks each individual as unique. The heart, symbolic of both love and vitality, beats through every piece, serving as the foundation for this season’s exploration of perception and existence. Morinaga delves into the power of art to transcend boundaries by collaborating with HERALBONY, a creative company based in Tokyo, Paris, and Morioka. HERALBONY works to empower artists with disabilities, providing them with a platform to reshape how society views creative expression.
This collaboration introduces eighteen artists whose works bring raw emotion to the collection. The garments transform into canvases, each piece pulsating with the passion of its creators. Personal, intimate impressions of their inner worlds manifest as prints, produced using KYOCERA’s sustainable textile printer FOREARTH. Each item stands as a visual representation of being, an emotional, spontaneous act of creation. Patterns, bursting with energy, swirl across the fabrics. The motifs evoke baroque and psychedelic influences, conjuring images of primitive organisms that spring to life. The designs and shapes of the garments appear alive, as if powered by an unseen energy, with dresses swelling like hearts and skirts, jackets, and capes undulating like living creatures.
Accessories push the concept further, with feline-shaped handbags featuring metronomic tails. Developed in collaboration with robotics startup Yukai Engineering Inc., these handbags are inspired by the Qoobo, a robotic product designed to offer a soothing, cat-like embrace. The bags extend the collection’s vision of life and vitality, blending art with technology in an unexpected, playful way.
The collection continues Anrealage’s ongoing collaboration with Thomas Bangalter, the electronic music artist behind Daft Punk. For SS26, the soundtrack, created with HERALBONY, layers the rhythmic pulse of a heartbeat with everyday sounds created by people with disabilities. This evocative soundscape deepens the emotional connection to the collection, accentuating the organic rhythms of human existence in contrast to the growing influence of AI and technology.
The collection examines how different individuals experience the world around them. Morinaga challenges the viewer to explore the boundary between how we perceive our environment and how others see it. Two parallel worlds unfold, inviting us to question where the line lies and what is revealed when it is crossed. This concept reinforces the central theme: fashion as a vehicle for the heartbeat of life, celebrating the beauty of difference and the resilience of human spirit.
