Children of the discordance Fall Winter 2023 – 2024 collection, presented again within Milan Fashion week’s official show calendar. INTERVENTIONS, the movie created for the event, broadcasted on CNMI platform https://milanofashionweek.cameramoda.it
For the sixth consecutive season, Japanese brand Children of the discordance, which has debuted in Milan calendar in July 2020 on the occasion of Milan Digital Fashion Week edition, present its collection at Milan Men’s Fashion Week in a digital format.
“This is my sixth season at Milan Fashion Week digitally. My original idea was to debut in,Milan with an on-site event show in 2020, but pandemic changed all my plans. Our opportunities were restricted and the way we could interact and connect with the world dramatically changed, the whole environment around us was disrupted. My lifestyle and,working style also changed a lot. When I finally thought we were close to go back to normal and about to finally have a physical event in Italy, the war started. Although Japan is not a party to the war, missiles are flying in from the north every week, and we can feel that we are not in a normal situation. But still we keep moving forward and I have been going on, running the brand with the hope of delivering great unique pieces of clothing to as many customers as possible globally. I truly believe joining MIlan has made our brand more,globally recognized. I would have not been able to maintain my brand, should I had not participated digital event. I am very grateful to Milan Fashion Week for this opportunity, and,I truly look forward for a time of peace. I hope to be able to present good works. I express my longing for peace through my FW23 collection.” said Shikama Hideaki, Children of the discordance’s creative director.
The seasonal fashion film will be titled, as the collection, INTERVENTIONS, and will be directed once again by Keita Suzuki, already director of the movies released in the last four seasons by the brand. INTERVENTIONS, will feature a live performance by Japanese Hip Hop artist B.I.G. JOE, who, with his track, ’WAR IS OVER’ has become a source pf inspiration for designer. Through B.I.G. JOE’s lyrics, the performance conveys Shikama’s desire for peace, for the return to normal.
The theme of Children of the Discordance Fall Winter 2023 – 2024 is INTERVENTIONS. Interventions are a sort of overlayering of various elements on a single object, with the aim to interfere, alter, ultimately strengthen or weaken each other’s own individuality. The collection itself, the technics, the stratification of fabrics express the balance resulting from these interferences of elements with one another, which strengthen or weaken each other to create a new individuality.
A tribute Shikama’s login for the end of war, the collection is inspired by a vision of the post conflict world.
“The patterns of the collection are placed next to each other, juxtaposed one over the other and the gap between them is used to create new textiles. I also try to create new textures by tearing apart the fabrics with weave processing. When the original camouflage pattern is intervented, it shakes like a bug. I recognise that the world situation in recent years has been critical. The smallest wave can turn into a big wave, as a result of the intervention of different people and things, from a complex combination of little factors which can turn into great works of art and music. In my own way, I wanted express both the good and the bad that INTERVENTION brings about in this collection”
The main visual is also based on the collection theme, with logo of fictitious sponsor companies which also appear in few pieces of the collection. These sponsors are a work of fictions, they reference entities of very different nature to represent the complexity of diverse interventions on the collection. Each sponsor brings about their individual contribution, they individual interference, their small input to change, which combined result in a substantial change.
As a liaison to previous collections, Children of The Discordance Fall Winter 2023 – 2024 will experiment with vintage fabric and dead stock, and will convey the seasonal theme featuring remade of vintage military dead stock hand painted and original camouflage patterns. Quilted bandana with random slits and stitches, layered quilted camouflage net fabric. Paisley pattern appears on bandanas and is printed on fine fleece.
As in past seasons, the collection will bring forward Children of the discordance’s signature gradation of black and white and its experimentations on faded nuances. This season’s color palette features warm shades of beige, military green and brown for Children of Discordance Fall Winter 2023 – 2024.
About: Children of the discordance
Children of the discordance starts in 2011 as a collective of three friends who, between hip-hop and hard-core music, create a customised shirt, making the one and only piece never seen before and produce original patches and screen prints for original t-shirts.
In 2013, Children of the discordance, whose brand name acknowledges the resistance of the designer to conform with common fashion and music trends, becomes a solo project with Shikama Hideaki continuing the brand on his own. The vintage bandanas appear first in 2014, used in small parts on the clothing, each with a distinct pattern to make each piece unique and with a unique impression.
Since the outset, Shikama has made use of fair-trade materials from EZLN in Mexico, Hirbawi Textile Factory in Palestina and Burkina Faso for his collections. Children of the discordance works with vanishing archives, taking the pieces apart, chopping them up and preserving the useable parts, and reconstructing into a wearable piece.
Today, Shikama sources bandanas from countries all over the world such as from USA, India, Pakistan, France, and the Netherlands and uses around 20,000 pieces of bandanas in one year for production, combining them with his own graphics and original textile designs to continue creating the one and only product that expresses his and his creations’ discordance.
All images Children of The Discordance Fall Winter 2023 – 2024 by Children of The Discordance
PR Agency AKA Milano