White Mountaineering Fall 2023 Menswear Collection

In the three years since White Mountaineering last showed a collection in Paris, Yosuke Aizawa’s life has fundamentally changed. Over the course of the pandemic, he built himself a house in the middle of a forest in the mountains outside Nagano, Japan—a refined mix of raw concrete and polished wood, with double-height glass windows and a huge roaring fire, as per a series of pictures on his iPhone which he shyly showed this reporter backstage. The designer now splits his time between wilderness and metropolis, making the four-hour commute to his atelier in Tokyo when he feels life requires an injection of pace.

Time apart from the fashion industry has strengthened Aizawa’s resolve to create clothes that can handle the dual demands of urban and pastoral. It has also afforded him an opportunity to pore over imagery by his friend Naoki Ishikawa, the Japanese climber, writer and photographer. In 2012, Ishikawa successfully summited Manaslu in Nepal, the eighth-highest mountain in the world. Ten years later, he summited for a second time, documenting his trip in a series of evocative images. So taken was Aizawa with these photographs that he decided to publish them in a book, copies of which were distributed at his show in Faculté de Pharmacie. These images also formed the basis of his inspiration for fall.

Fresh off the back of a successful collaboration with Uniqlo in November, and a second link-up with Italian performancewear label Colmar, which sees Aizawa take on a creative consultant role for the brand’s premium Revolution line, White Mountaineering is riding high on a wave of wider recognition. It’s longer a niche label for gorpcore devotees and Japanophiles, and Aizawa was clearly feeling confident backstage. “My two different lifestyles—in the mountains and in the city—have inspired this collection. We’ve been using a lot of high-tech, multi-functional fabrics with low-tech ones,” he said, pointing out a generously cut, charcoal wool padded gilet with a Gore-Tex lining. Another favorite outfit comprised charcoal flannel pants paired with a blanket-style wool skirt, a camo fleece and a duffel coat.

In evidence throughout was Aizawa’s savvy collaborative mindset—Nepal-inspired knitwear two-pieces were paired with Vans; earth-toned Colmar puffers and Gramicci technical cargos were shown with Merrell hiking boots or Danner suede lace-up walking boots—which gave the whole thing a wonderfully wearable authenticity. You could see any one of these pieces becoming a wardrobe staple for biting winter weekends or casual Fridays. Furthermore, those audience members flipping through the book of Ishikawa’s photographs and feeling energized to scale a mountain will certainly know where to go to secure their summit look.