What can you do with five types of yarn and, say, four kinds of knitting stitches?
If you’ve got Yusuke Takahashi’s knack for knitwear, you can turn out CFCL’s entire spring menswear collection, a lineup spanning close to 100 references that went from polo shirts and lightweight blousons to trousers, a jumpsuit and a smattering of accessories like socks and backpacks.
After a “wardrobe for professionals” last season, Takahashi quipped he “expanded the definition of the job to more creative areas” with a collection that was easy, breezy and no less polished despite taking a more casual spin.
Telegraphing summer decontraction, Takahashi mixed yarn weights and stitch tightness to obtain warm-weather fare with polish, while keeping cuts a touch boxy and oversized.
Elsewhere he introduced a yarn that was part recycled polyester, part washi paper with an extra dry hand. Turned into a loose knit, it gave a boxy half-sleeve shirt structure without losing any of its casual-cool.
It was among the standouts of the season, which also included a blouson made breathable by its looser knit; a jacket with thicker panels on the front and all the fluidity of a cardigan on the back; slacks with a stitch at the ankle that turned their straight leg into a curved one, and belted tailored overalls.
Takahashi added visual intrigue with texture play but also marled grey-white and blue-black pairings, or experimented with patterns created using the Mura-zome dyeing technique that yielded a subtle cloudy take on tie-dye.
New this season was a footwear collaboration with Parisian sneaker brand Veja. While not playing on the Japanese label’s knit specialty, the design was about pursuing the throughline of easy elegance and had subtle tweaks like invisible lacing eyelets.
CFCL’s menswear repertoire isn’t the only thing that’s growing. Takahashi said the brand was planning on opening its first store outside Japan, where it currently has seven unit, next year in Seoul.
In the meantime, it has set up an office in Paris to support its European activities, with a Selfridges pop-up in London on the cards for August.