The combination is something that gives it real beauty. I take that cute teddy bear and I give it a bit of a shock - that bit of violence. “In my work I want to express not something merely pretty or cute, but to find something behind it,” explains Takahashi. There was a period in Takahashi’s work where he continually made monstrous-looking ‘Gila’ dolls (named after a species of venomous lizard) out of teddy bears, and a teddy bear with blocked-out eyes has become the brand’s unofficial mascot. The designer insists that, no matter the complexity or price of a garment, he imbues everything he produces with an equal degree of creativity, which appears to flow directly from his mind’s seemingly unbounded capacity for conjuring up a unique universe of intricate and slightly warped fantasies. Indeed, Takahashi’s label - which turns 25 this year and is celebrating the milestone with a major retrospective at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, a monograph published by Rizzoli and a men’s collection that riffs on the Undercover archives - is equally famous for its graphic t-shirts, favoured by teenagers, as its conceptual runway pieces.
It's a view that is encapsulated in Undercover's motto - "We Make Noise, Not Clothes" - and reflected in its wildly imaginative collections, simultaneously sinister and playful, which broke down the divide between the street and the runway long before the rise of luxury streetwear. Otherwise, it's just cocktail dresses and bags - and that's not interesting." So says Jun Takahashi, designer of Japanese label Undercover, in a rare interview at the company's offices in the Tokyo neighbourhood of Harajuku.
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