The presentation of Harunobumurata is a comeback at Milano Fashion Week, both because he already presented his collections here, and because he was a fashion design student in the city back in 2010. If you want to know more about who Harunobu is, here’s a bit of his story.
Harunobu Murata is a young Japanese designer. In December 2009 he won the Grand Prize at the Kobe Fashion Contest that also rewarded him with a scholarship for the Master in Fashion design at Istituto Marangoni in Milan, which he started in 2010. Upon graduation in 2011 he received the Special Prize by order of the city of Paris for his collection inspired by the beauty and grace of the ocean presented at the International Festival of Young Designers of Dinard.
Again in 2012 Harunobu won the Next Generation Project organised by The CNMI, The National Chamber of Italian Fashion and presented his collection at Milan Fashion Week Fall/WInter 2012/13.
If you are familiar with John Richmond, there’s where Harunobu started his career, where they could work closely developing the first line of men/women’s collection. Then in 2015 he started working at Jil Sander as a womenswear designer.
Harunobu Murata, class 1988, moved back to Japan in 2018 where he founded the design studio ATRUM, where he work at the production of the luxury womenswear label that bears his name HARUNOBUMURATA.
And in 2019, for the Fashion Week that held place in February in Milano, we could finally see the homonymous fall/winter collection displayed in the historical building Palazzo Giureconsulti. This house that is known for all Milaneses for being the home of the Chamber of Commerce, was the hub that hosted many new presentations during fashion week.
In one of the rooms on the ground floor, in a scenario of semidarkness and spotlights, the collection was displayed partly hanging on clothing racks and partly worn by models. Few collections as this one really needed to be displayed on people. While the clothes hanging appeared to be simple minimal chic cuts, once worn, you could understand the hidden value that made them incredibly unique. They entered a complete different dimension.
So what made them so special?
One word: pockets. There is quite a genial idea behind the design of the pockets. Pockets are placed in a way that you feel invited to find them and while you put your hands in your pocket, these clothes, coats and jackets, are tailored to make you naturally adapt to a posture that beams self-confidence. The lines are very delicate and from simple as they look when hanging, they turn into modern, subtly complex in their simplicity and delicate when worn.
To complete the collection, HARUNOBUMURATA presented exclusively designed metal accessories and a bag that stands by itself.
Manifesto for the collection is that the ideal garment vanishes when put on, and the lines are indeed evanescent and not simple. The style that describes HARUNOBUMURATA’s fall winter collection is a combination of the two cultures in which he grew up: Japanese and Italians and they combine beautifully in the way he defines the inner beauty of woman.
HARUNOBUMURATA can be defined as cosmopolitan, minimal and sophisticated at the same time. A hymn to complex femininity said in the simplest and yet refined manners. And a “hands-in-your-pockets” collection for enhanced self-confidence.
