Upon visiting the exhibition venue, this reporter was first impressed by the unique pattern work, executed with a quality that surpassed even last season’s high-water mark. Particularly shocking were the distorted silhouettes that seemed to closely hug the body’s contours only to suddenly fly off on their own, as if turning up their nose at the human form. For example, the zip-up coat that nullified the shoulder lines and a puffer jacket with emphatically sloped shoulders. Ultra-flared pants with swirling, vortex-like seams provided an antithesis to conventionally idealized long, straight legs. Puffer jackets with heart-shaped paneling created the peculiar illusion that they might slip off the shoulders at any minute. Nagami seemed to be saying that there is no beauty in showcasing nor deliberately concealing the raw contours of the physical human body. Instead, the garments in all these inventive contortions seemed to want to convey the designer’s heartful cry that true beauty lies in some invisible, intangible space in between.

Naturally, the brand’s signature AI-generated visuals played a central role this season. Interestingly, the surreal visuals that adorned the knits and dresses were run through AI algorithms twice: first to generate the images and then to adjust them to fit the frames for the garment patterns. An important caveat is that Nagami views AI as an “alien intelligence” and uses it merely as a tool. Perhaps this blend of AI and human intervention explains why HATRA’s garments possess such an uncannily organic sense of unease. Behind HATRA’s appeal may very well be Nagami’s obsessive desire to incorporate everything—all the minutiae of life and all that he sees—back into design.

Each season, HATRA never fails to evolve and surprise anew. The A/W 2024-25 exhibition included rugs, a first for the brand. Nagami explained the rugs were not selected with an eye for expanding into the interior décor business, but rather emerged by happenstance when he noticed they would be an ideal medium to express the original visuals designed with generative AI. Creation comes first and the form follows the concept. In short, HATRA’s latest collection was an exciting window into the philosophy of a man who has dedicated his life to design.