On Thursday night, Uniqlo celebrated the launch of two collections — JW Anderson (his third collaboration with the brand) and Hana Tajima (her sixth) — with an intimate cocktail party at SmogShoppe in Los Angeles.
While some guests are already longtime devotees, others were arriving to get more familiar with the British designers. The common thread was Fast Retailing’s Uniqlo, where this week Anderson’s collection launched, priced $9.90 for a scarf to $149.90 for the trenchcoat that was the party’s must-wear style.
Among the young Hollywoodites sipping spicy sangria and grazing the collections in the retired Eighties auto shop were Ashley Madekwe, Dylan Brosnan, Alanna Masterson, Georgie Flores, Katherine McNamara, Evan Mock and Myles O’Neal.
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Standing near a cheese and charcuterie station, actresses Masterson of “The Walking Dead” and Georgie Flores of “Dumplin” showed off their best-friend status by finishing each other’s sentences, and twinning in matching JW Anderson shirts from the men’s line.
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“I love the rugby shirts,” said Flores, of the style Anderson created in honor of his father, who used to play rugby for Ireland in the Eighties.
“Me too,” Masterson said. “I’m already into these kind of shirts anyways. They’re kind of big comfy boy shirts.”
Continuing on, Masterson noted, “I love when a major designer does something that people can afford at a lower price point. It’s cool to support bigger designers when they’re more accessible to people who don’t have a lot of money for high fashion things.”
Nearby, fellow Brit and style aficionado, Madekwe drummed up her first experience with JW Anderson.
“I’m really fond of it because it’s a British label and I was able to wear the line on an Elle shoot I did for ‘Revenge’ years ago. I remember really being excited about it.”
On the collection, which was inspired by a day at the museum, Madekwe noted, “everything is very wearable. There’s lots of good building blocks, which I really like.”
Also on the scene was “Shadowhunters” star McNamara who was taking in the cool hues of Tajima’s line, aimed at offering modest clothing for women of all backgrounds.
“My style tends to be black and jackets and boots, but I like to experience and play,” she said.
“What I’ve noticed in being here, especially seeing it all laid out, are the colors. They’re rich and also so clean. It has the clean and modern Uniqlo feel. You can still have such a rich color palette within that and I find the creativity amazing.”