The Best Collection UNDERCOVER Ever Produced Is Born Again, 20 Years Later
UNDERCOVER founder Jun Takahashi has made it abundantly clear that he prefers designing womenswear. He deserted men's runway shows long ago, for instance, and for Fall/Winter 2025, he celebrates UNDERCOVER's 35th anniversary by reviving its greatest-ever collection as a womenswear line.
UNDERCOVER's Spring/Summer 2005 collection, "But Beautiful 2" — itself a sequel to FW04's "But Beautiful" — remains a watershed moment for Takahashi, who was mentored by COMME des GARÇONS founder Rei Kawakubo.
The CDG influence is especially tangible in "But Beautiful," a gorgeous mélange of dreamily unstructured tailoring that takes on the affect of pajamas amidst many patchworked frocks.
But it wasn't all peasant daydreams: with all its dangling threads, lapel buttons, and raw hems, the collection took on a punkish edge inherent to the oeuvre of both Takahashi and Kawakubo.
"But Beautiful" was a textural masterpiece the likes of which some, especially UNDERCOVER archivists and collectors, may claim that Takahashi never quite hit again, despite much subsequent acclaim. Takahashi thinks so, at least, calling the collection his "personal best" in his FW25 show notes
"[But Beautiful] is a collection inspired by... Anne-Valerie Dupond and the style of Patti Smith," Takahashi wrote. "The design ... was based on the idea of what it might be like if Patti Smith wore clothes reminiscent of handcrafted stuffed animals."
Sounds whimsical but the results speak to Takahashi's eye for artisanal assemblage, an eye that's mostly been trained on runway spectacles like the terrarium dresses he created for Spring/Summer 2024.
And, I'll be honest: As fun as that stuff is, it's so far removed from the punk-art appeal of early UNDERCOVER collections, back when Takahashi was content to create grounded garments overtly, gleefully indebted to Vivienne Westwood. Far be it for me to critique an artist for evolving — especially when he'd probably rather be painting — but spectacle is common. Beautiful clothes are rare.
Takahashi got back to his roots for FW25, effectively remaking "But Beautiful" as "But Beautiful 4," and the results are some of his finest work in years, perhaps since UNDERCOVER's sublime Throne of Blood homage from FW20.
Certainly, the showpieces — especially Dupond's hand-stitched shoes, inflated puffer dresses, and birdlike skirt-suits embellished with showers of buttons — are gorgeous but what makes them better is that they're surrounded by classically cool UNDERCOVER fare.
The pajama suits, the asymmetric cardigans, the chopped denim jeans with dangling belts — perfect!
Even as Takahashi hits middle age, UNDERCOVER is expanding as fast as a young label with much to prove.
It just established a permanent GU sub-label, for instance, and it's turning out rapid-fire collaborations with partners like jewelry label Bunney and sweat-suiter Champion.
UNDERCOVER seems so jazzed on the Champion stuff, in fact, that its newest Champion collab hit the runway right next to the more sumptuous stuff, perhaps the only stylistic misstep of the season.
Well, that, and I do feel a little guilty championing a new collection that's really a riff on an old collection, as if we don't have enough remakes floating around culture nowadays. But, hey, I'll take this over a superhero move any day.
