Moncler Genius’ Next Chapter: NOIR KEI NINOMIYA
The Moncler Genius project provides an opportunity for upcoming and established designers to reinterpret the visual identity developed and honed by the Italian outerwear brand Moncler. From Craig Green’s kinetic, architectural installation at SSENSE Montréal to the labyrinthine audio-video spectacle at the Moncler Genius Building, unveiled during Milan Fashion Week 2019, the works take various forms, rolling out according to a timetable at direct odds with the traditional twice-yearly rhythm of the fashion calendar.
The latest iteration of the project is “The Next Chapter,” for which Moncler Chairman and CEO Remo Ruffini tapped Japanese prince of punk and Rei Kawakubo protégé NOIR KEI NINOMIYA, whose modular, delicately balanced tubular garments can be purchased from today. The collection – which can be previewed below – contains parkers, jumpers, gilets, short bombers, skirts, dresses, and blousons, each held together by industrial metal rings, couture-like workmanship, and earthed by weighty shoes. Leather, laqué nylon, dolmias, and of course Moncler’s signature use of insulating down provide the material foundation on which Ninomiya’s emerging brand of punk romanticism plays out.
“Moncler Genius is a challenge of innovation, and a progressive project in every respect,” says Ninomiya. “It allowed me the opportunity to develop new techniques [using] down. Progress always stems from the way things are made.”
Moncler Genius entered its second year during Milan Fashion Week 2019. Housed in a single building on Via Ferrante Aporti, the latest presentation of the Genius project took form as a wonderland of rooms – or tunnels – in which each of the nine experimental collections unfolded under the motto: “One House, Different Voices.” When “The Next Chapter” launched late last year, it was accompanied by a series of immersive video installations, a symbol of Moncler’s move to reposition itself and its operating system for the exigencies of the digital age. Each of the designers worked on artworks that would reveal something of their process for visitors to the Milanese warehouse space. Ninomiya’s offering was a series of computerized 3D models that deconstruct the garments in the new collection.
6 MONCLER NOIR KEI NINOMIYA is available now in Moncler boutiques, at moncler.com and in selected wholesale networks worldwide.
