If you’ve been worrying about AI taking away your job or subjugating humanity à la Skynet, pause for a moment to feel how AI feels about you judging it so harshly.
That’s the food for thought that Doublet designer Masayuki Ino offered up at his spring show — for those who weren’t in the mood for the seafood spread performance artist Tommy Cash came dressed as.
“I just want to live with you,” Ino had AI saying in the collection notes and it’s this live-and-let-live angle that he explored through whimsical and witty characters that ran from robots to mad scientists.
Out came a lineup that straddled the ambiguous line between human and android, all data ports stuck to the skin or audio jacks with cables attached dangling from jogging trousers. A through line in the collection was proportions slightly askew and items worn in unusual ways, as if the wearer weren’t quite au fait of how humans dress.
Highlights included a grandpa cardigan worn askew, the neckline becoming an armhole; jeans used as a handbag, hanging off the shoulder by its chain belt; a net grocery bag worn as a top, and pixelized knits figuring jeans and message T-shirts.
Elsewhere, he rounded out the collection with pieces that made humans look augmented (even when rolling down the runway perched on hoverboards) or like humanoid robots with their mechanics visible. His nimble hand at construction made it all uncanny but believable.
Do Doublet androids dream of Paris Fashion Week? If what they see is Ino’s work, doesn’t sound too bad.