It pays to have a human encyclopedia at your elbow to help in decoding a Junya Watanabe presentation. When Gene Krell, Vogue Japan's seasoned fashion director, identified today's soundtrack as Beny Moré, the legendary Cuban singer, that was one more clue in Junya's Latin American puzzle. The real giveaway, though, had to be the designer's beloved Perfecto reconfigured as a pale blue leather bolero with ruffled sleeves fit for a mambo king.

The bolero arrived on the heels of a series of light, graceful dresses that looked cut from the lace tablecloth you might find in the homestead where the mambo king lived with his queen. It was easy to imagine the lace being laboriously over-embroidered by women who were perpetuating a craft learned from their mothers, who'd learned it from their mothers, and so on through time. And it was equally easy to imagine Junya being drawn to such a notion. He usually starts somewhere very traditional before he makes his own hybrid adjustments. That happened here when the lace dresses began to grow asymmetric panels of black, or when what looked like spectral military outerwear put in an appearance (a black tulle flight jacket?). The bolero reappeared as a truncated trenchcoat. Then the trenchcoat reappeared as a coat/dress/cape hybrid whose elegant precision gave the effect of wings folded around the model.

It was again thanks to Mr. Krell that the spectator shoes could be placed in the big picture. Dancers of the style of Cuban salsa known as casino wore them. By extension, Kamo's spectacular headgear, composed of rooster feathers, could be construed as some kind of reference to Latin dandy cocks of the walk. But ultimately, all that information was brainiac window dressing. What counted were the clothes themselves—romantic, intriguing, pretty, playful, and ever so slightly subversive in the Watanabe way.

BRAND: JUNYA WATANABE  |  JUNYA WATANABE OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Our review will be posted shortly. See the complete collection by clicking the image at left.

BRAND: A.F.VANDEVORST  |  A.F.VANDEVORST OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Commuun's Kaito Hori and Iku Furudate have a well established love for fabric play. For Spring, they did more experimenting in that direction. In the process, the designers uncovered a crisper side of their vocabulary, one that went beyond a sharp black one-button blazer, and another jacket in blush pink that was shown over a melon-colored button-down and full pants cut off at the knee.

A cropped jacket cut from crinkly white patent for the body with black suede arms was the standout example of the duo's new streamlined aesthetic. There was also something compelling about a slightly oversize A-line T-shirt assembled from sheer white sleeves, a bird-print body, and a coppery band at the hem. The feathery motif was sweet, but it had shed some of the cuteness previously associated with the label. Geometry informed other prints, like an ombré blue-on-white square pattern on a streamlined shift, as well as the minimal, sometimes architectural lines of the clothes. Hori and Furudate did evening, maybe for the first time ever. The strapless black silk dress stopped well short of the knee, but the chiffon panels at the sides gave it a sense of drama. The designers are growing up, and their collection along with it.

BRAND: COMMUUN  |  COMMUUN OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Perhaps it was the wimplelike head wraps or literal sackcloth skirt, but Josephus Thimister's models often seemed like they'd been transported through time and space from a medieval convent to a slightly sweaty industrial garage in the middle of Paris.

To be fair, that sort of spartan and severe quality has always characterized the Belgian designer's work throughout his long, albeit spotty, years. And this, his second consecutive season of putting ready-to-wear on a runway after a very extended break, followed in the vein of last season's military-tinged masculine/feminine mash-up of webby knits, harem pants, and kimono-sleeved jackets. Still, for all that heft, the show began on a summery note, with pale gauzy crinkle cotton blouses left long to trail out of soft jackets and over drapey pants, all worn with simple flat leather sandals. These were grounded with rough leather belts, some corset-wide and triple-buckled, others strapped with little pouches.

Though the palette soon darkened to earthy brown and black, Thimister, like many designers, is always trying to find equilibrium between hard and soft. He achieved that here with more sharply tailored jackets, occasionally flipped and deconstructed inside out, and monastic high-collared shirting. It's something he does with both womenswear and men's, of which there was far less here today. On the whole, it wasn't a new proposal, but a smart merchandiser would go straight to those haremlike pants and pretty pleated silk jackets with kimono sleeves. And add to that a sporty, crisp white trench with flaring sleeves—it seemed like an aberration, but nonetheless one with an off-runway life. What to leave out: Thimister's one-legged hybrid floor-length skirt and shorts. Good for no one, except maybe a nun on the run.

BRAND: THIMISTER  |  THIMISTER OFFICIAL WEBSITE

The gardens of what is reputedly the most beautiful villa in all of Florence provided the venue for the celebration of Raf Simons' fifth anniversary designing Jil Sander menswear. And, as he told Style.com the other day, the setting also offered up nature as an inspiration. She was at her most wayward on Thursday, blowing out the windows at Pitti with a raging hailstorm, casting a lowering shadow over Raf's garden party, but then providing an epic sunset for guests as they arrived at the villa. You can't compete with those effects. But Simons is certainly the right designer to extract order from all that chaos. He chose friction as a response, just as you'd expect him to.

To a soundtrack of vintage techno, almost by definition the most unnatural sound known to man, he presented a profusion of color—but unlike any colors you'd find in nature. Intense fluoro shades were combined and layered to create a synthetic sundae. A hot pink shirt paired with bright orange pants sounds like the kind of combo that might generate some hibiscus heat. In Simons' hands, it was a cool, precise challenge to nature's own chaotic palette. As literal as he got was a floral print, dark and clotted. It translated well to a jersey body with a tattoo effect (bringing to mind an old something by Jean Paul Gaultier, a designer Simons admires).

The overt sensuality of such an item and the op art graphism of some striped pieces struck chords in a collection that otherwise felt familiar. The uniform tailoring is a Simons signature. Interrupting the formality of that tailoring by showing a jacket with a pair of what looked like boxers is the kind of boy-centric ploy he's used before. The synthetic color-blocking is not new to him (hello, Yves Klein blue). Even the accordion pleating on a jacket sleeve or the back of a coat harked back to the recent past. Predictability would once have been anathema to Raf, but again, as he said to Style.com, he wants to "free Jil from itself," leave a different kind of vocabulary for whoever eventually follows him at Jil Sander. As a man with legacy (and an anniversary) on his mind, it makes sense he would want to consolidate the signatures he's established at the brand. So this was the kind of familiarity that bred content (not quite the old-shoe variety, though, because the pink-soled black oxfords were a gold star). Still, familiarity was an odd sensation to feel at the end of anything connected to Raf Simons. Nature at least was patient. The rain held off till the last models had disappeared back into the topiary.

BRAND: JIL SANDER  |  JIL SANDER OFFICIAL WEBSITE

This season it seems like you can't throw your show ticket without hitting a hybridized or mixed-media article of clothing, but both are ideas that Sacai's Chitose Abe has been turning over for several seasons. Like she did for Spring, for Fall Abe continued splicing lingerie elements into decidedly non-boudoir clothes—this time heavier stuff like ski-worthy woolly knits and sturdy nylon bombers.

You could see the wine-hued slip peeking from the front of a gray cable-knit sweater dress, and on the return you saw a full neck-to-knee inset slice of satin and lace. A lovely blouson bouclé sweatshirt was pieced with lace shoulders. Along with the play between outside and in, there was tension between day and evening. Abe repeatedly used an iridescent burgundy silk that would usually be more at home on a ball gown than cut into hot-pink-striped tuxedo pants worn with a patch-pocketed cargo vest-cum-waffle cardigan.

Like many of her fellow Japanese designers—including her former employers Rei Kawakubo and Junya Watanabe—Abe's not interested in re-creation so much as reinterpretation. But she has always been more commercially minded. To wit, she built her business for several years before courting any press. The point of difference with Abe is that her twists on the closet canon might surprise, but they're never meant to repel or provoke.

Abe's work might have a slow burn, but it did glow a little brighter for Fall as she did four mini-shows, perhaps a step closer to the runway. Or not. To see these clothes in motion but still at close range might just be ideal.

BRAND: SACAI  |  SACAI OFFICIAL WEBSITE