KTZ, spring 2013 – text by Silvia Bombardini

Dear Shaded Viewers and Diane,

For their latest menswear collection, it looks as if the Kokon To Zai team ("east meets west", in Japanese) were particularly enthusiast on their farthest Zai side. Spring 2013 is a hyperrealist westerly tale, roughly set somewhere between San Francisco and LA and there, roughly playing out. Its heroes are from the widest and wildest West Coast subculture, football and guns and Mexican clubs, muscles and chicken wings, KTZ's bold and manly take on the updated American dream. Long and sleeveless coats, similar to those you would see were you to find yourself in a motorbike fair, are covered in patches, fearless and vibrant statements of beliefs like tattoos on cotton. B-Horror scenes with skeletons and graves, black metal logos and battering rams, the KTZ acronym spelled in angular, blood-dripping fonts. There are flaming prints with bullets and upsized brass knuckles, hooded sweaters and helmets and magnet earrings, military outfits patiently cut and pieced back together with knots and strings, like characters from a George A. Romero's script.