Georgia O'Keeffe's idyllic paintings of flowers, cattle skulls, and the Western American landscape has provided ample fodder for many a clothing brand but it's not the artist's canvases that inspired Graphpaper's Fall/Winter 2022 collection. The minimalist Japanese brand instead channels O'Keeffe's living spaces, drawing from the earthy hues of her surrounding organic palette.
The sandy spaces that O'Keeffe dwelled in during her later years proved particularly influential to the creative process of Takayuki Minami, creative director of Graphpaper and sister label Freshservice, who looked to her adopted New Mexico homes to inform his new selection of slouchy staples.
Minami even serves a bowl of literal rocks, presumably sourced from the American Southwest, to give the FW22 lookbook necessary color.
These kinds of thoughtful design cues are nothing new for Minami, who previously drew from German philosopher Walter Benjamin and American artist Andrew Wyeth for past Graphpaper collections.
The interesting thing with Graphpaper is that Minami rarely diverts from his usual staples when creating collections. Each season provides the usual big shirts, bigger pants, and oversized outerwear, occasionally flipping the script with slightly updated silhouettes or advanced fabrications.
Minami will always deliver some sort of technical winter coat and a couple subtle collaborations with likeminded makers. It looks like there's another special Graphpaper shoe made by Reproduction of Found and I wouldn't be surprised if Loopwheeler again issues exclusive hoodies.
The distinction between Graphpaper seasons is thus usually not the clothing, which only varies a bit, and is much more about the theme and colors used therein.
So, for Minami, O'Keeffe's house in Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch are what it's all about, informing his use of color this season.
Brick tones borrow from the structure of O'Keeffe's homes, ecru absorbs the atmosphere of the bleached bones the artist collected, and green is reflective of the flora that grows all around New Mexico.
The men's and women's Graphpaper collections do some fun things with this conceit, saturating the imminently wearable apparel in pleasantly poppy shades. It's fun and it makes Graphpaper's clothing even that much more appealing, especially considering that Minami's preferred palette is normally terribly somber monochrome.
