Junya Watanabe Silver Sequin Top

A sequin is a small mirror on a thread, and what makes a sequined garment move is that each one is hinged. They swing independently, so the surface breaks light into hundreds of separate points that rearrange every time the wearer does. Laying them in horizontal rows rather than scattering them gives that motion a direction, and the eye reads bands traveling across the body instead of a field glittering at random. Underneath is the part that is easy to miss. The underlayer is shiny in its own right, which means this top has two reflective surfaces working at different speeds: a continuous one that returns light in a single plane, and a broken one that returns it in pieces. They do not compete, because they are not doing the same thing. Silver over black is the arrangement that keeps both of them legible, since a silver on silver would lose the underlayer entirely.

Sequins are usually asked to carry a garment alone. Putting them over a surface that already reflects is the harder idea and the better one, and it is why this top still has something happening in flat light.

Junya Watanabe designs under his own name inside Comme des Garçons, and stacking two versions of one effect rather than amplifying a single one is a move the company has been making for decades.

Ninety percent polyester and ten percent polyurethane. Made in Japan. Sleeveless and layered, with a shiny black underlayer and horizontal silver sequins. Color: silver and black. We do not hold a description of what the sequins are made of or how they are attached, and we will not guess at either.

Sleeveless and layered, so it stands away from the arm and the two layers move separately from one another. Size at the shoulder. A sequined ground does not ease over a body the way a plain knit does, and the polyurethane in this cloth may be doing structural work rather than supplying give, so it is not a garment to size down on the assumption that it will stretch.

With the Black Denim Bell-Bottom Jeans or the Low Rise Jeans, so that the only thing returning light sits above the waist. Under a matte jacket, which turns the sequins into a neckline until the jacket comes off. Not with the Junya Watanabe Leather Patchwork Jacket, where two metallic surfaces cancel each other out.

The polyurethane in this cloth is the part that decides everything, and it is intolerant of heat and of solvent whether it is a fiber or a finish. Do not iron a sequined surface, do not tumble dry it, wash it cool and by hand if you wash it at all, and dry it flat and away from a radiator. Our care guidance covers cloth of this kind.

The White Drapy Top is the sheer shirt to wear over it, and the x Levi’s Denim Jeans with Pleated Inserts is the wide trouser that carries its width in folds. Junya Watanabe has his own account of the house on the Comme des Garçons designer page.