Technoculture Oligo Press
Review
The first thing that came to mind was not so much a pop-up book as a pop-up collection. Because though the season did indeed take inspiration from Achromatic City, a picture book Shinya Kozuka wrote in his early twenties, the collection itself seemed to have almost literally jumped out of the pages of the book, bringing elements of it to life: the pictures created by the painter protagonist, the clothes the characters wear, the invitation to the colorful other world that the protagonist in the titular achromatic city receives, and the bright blue carpet that covers the catwalk in the fashion show that appears later in the story. Kozuka effectively reconfigured and remade his picture book, which then became the basis forinto this collection.
As the title suggests, color was the key idea behind this collection. From the calm monochromes to faint pastel tones, and bursts of intense oranges, greens, and yellows, Kozuka’s incredibly broad palette of colors amicably complemented each other. Among them, a vivid blue occupied center stage. According to Kozuka, it’s the “strongest background color” that brings out all hues, but that’s not all. This deep, pellucid blue that Kozuka’s sensibility begot has a mysterious power to it, one that pulls the viewer into a whole other world. Through this blue, we journey into Kozuka’s story, yet it’s also this same blue that both unsettles our enchanted souls drifting around a fantasy land and takes us back to the real world. As we shuttle back and forth between dream and reality, we realize that we are held captive by SHINYAKOZUKA. The designer has made a name for himself as an extraordinary storyteller and this is a collection that shows him at his best.
