He sent his models out from the middle of a long single line runway. They would stand back to back before heading off in opposite directions. Wearing black ballet flats, leotards and leggings, sometimes with their hair encased in a rubber black swim cap, or more dramatically swirling, face-effacing hats, the models were merely a vessel on which the designer’s construction clothing would sit.

The spongy neoprene-like fabric, that was revealed to be a nylon tricot bonded to polyurethane, was folded origami-style into three-dimensional shapes about the body. There were those that, for lack of a better description, resembled the fortune teller game most of us played when we were kids. Black was the clear preferred color this season but Watanabe peppered in the odd fuchsia or red-hued clothing constructs.

Occasionally he would switch from folding the spongy material to sculpting it into shapes that didn’t look so out of this world. A black plissé skirt could cross over and a dress with beautiful fan pleating curving out across a shoulder was a true wearable art option. For the slightly more adventurous, a perfecto jacket with sleeves crafted from circle shapes could be tempting.

But overall this collection felt more like a cerebral sartorial exploration than clothing that had any intention of being worn. Which is fine, except that the concept was so cool you wished Watanabe had found more ways to translate his big ideas into something small enough to wear.