Junya Watanabe's theme was "Faraway." Nowhere specific, but the collaborator on this collection was Vlisco, the Dutch company that has been the major supplier of fabric to West and Central Africa since the mid-19th century, so Watanabe's destination wasn't really so vague. And he clarified it further with the accessories—beads, bones, fetish objects—he collected from a couple of Parisian stores that specialize in African artifacts. Without knowing that Vlisco is considered instrumental in helping to shape the region's cultural identity (for example, British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare uses the company's fabrics in his work to challenge Western colonial history), it was not hard to see how Watanabe's presentation of pallid Europeans in patchworked Africana might spark some knee-jerk negativism. But these eyes, at least, were reminded of the designer's work with boro, the traditional Japanese patchwork that began centuries ago as peasant clothing. There is a belief in Japan that when something has been damaged and mended, it becomes more beautiful.