Junya Watanabe White Drapy Top

A drape is usually the cloth's own doing. You cut generously, you hang it, and gravity arranges the folds where it likes, which is why a draped neckline is so often nearly right and never twice the same. Pleating the inside of the garment takes that decision back. The pleats are set on the face of the cloth that turns toward the body, and their only consequence on the outside is that the neckline falls in the folds it was designed to fall in. On a sheer cloth this becomes an unusual proposition, because sheer means the construction is at least partly legible, so a pleat set inside is not hidden so much as held one layer back from the surface. You see that something is making the drape happen without quite seeing what. That is a more interesting thing for a white shirt to do than most white shirts attempt.

A draped neckline that has been engineered will look the same on the fiftieth wearing as on the first. A draped neckline that was left to gravity will not. That is the whole argument, and very few sheer shirts are in a position to make it.

Junya Watanabe designs under his own name inside Comme des Garçons, and building a soft effect out of a hard structure is the method he is best known for.

One hundred percent polyester. Made in Japan. Sheer, with internal pleating and a draped neckline. Color: sheer white. We do not hold a sleeve length, a closure, or a hem shape for this shirt. Please ask us and we will look at it with you.

Pleating stores cloth, so a pleated garment carries width that is not visible while it is still, and this shirt reads narrower on a hanger than it wears. Polyester is thermoplastic, which means a pleat can be set into the fiber itself rather than pressed into the cloth, so the drape does not need maintaining and will not fall out. Sheer and white together mean that whatever is worn underneath becomes part of the garment, and it should be chosen on that basis.

Over the Silver Sequin Top, where sheer white over black and silver is the most direct version of the idea. With the Low Rise Jeans or the Black Denim Bell-Bottom Jeans, which is the plainest. Under the Junya Watanabe Leather Patchwork Jacket.

Polyester washes easily and will not survive heat: a hot iron glazes the surface and flattens a set pleat, and neither comes back. Wash cool, hang to dry, and steam from a distance rather than pressing if the neckline needs reviving. Our care guidance covers the rest.

The Silver Sequin Top is what goes under it, the Cargo Dress is the piece divided front from back by cloth, and the Low Rise Jeans is the indigo stone wash. Junya Watanabe has his own account of the house on the Comme des Garçons designer page.