For spring–summer 2027, Kunihiko Morinaga concludes ‘Skin’ with dresses covered in electronic paper scales. The same show ends with an LED skin. The two do not say the same thing about skin.
‘Skin’ is Anrealage’s twenty-fifth presentation in Paris, shown at the Maison de la Radio et de la Musique. The collection develops through gradual mutation: close-fitting, single-piece silhouettes, followed by increasingly elaborate constructions made of scales in different materials (Toray’s Ultrasuede, washi, translucent sequins with a fur-like effect, and 3D-printed scales that change colour depending on the angle).
It culminates in six cocktail and evening dresses reminiscent of armour. Each bears between 1,000 and 2,000 E Ink electronic paper scales, controlled individually. Vivid colours appear, then drain away to ash grey, before new patterns spread across the garment in increasingly complex formations. Beneath the surface, a dense network of wires connects the scales, like hairs or feathers growing on skin. Artificial intelligence mapped this circuit.
Here is the decisive detail: these scales do not emit light. Unlike an LED, the material itself changes colour, like cells suddenly filling with pigment. The collection references surfaces inspired by chromatophores, the pigment cells found in animals, and the E Ink dress is the most direct example.
Yet the show ends with the other technology. A lone model appears in a digital LED skin, carried over from the previous season. The body glows to the music of The Firebird by Stravinsky, performed live in its 1919 version. The firebird refers to Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix, a symbol of rebirth that the house uses as its recurring thread.
The contrast between the two is the real subject. An LED skin is a source of light, whereas living skin is a surface that reflects light and takes on colour. Electronic paper therefore comes closer to the idea of ‘mutating skin’ championed by the collection, since its colour is a transformation of the material rather than added illumination. The LED, meanwhile, suits the finale because it plays the role of the phoenix’s light.
The criterion is simple: a skin that changes must remain a legible surface in the ordinary light of a room, and not only on a runway. That is where the E Ink dress will have to be judged, away from the show.
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