According to Jun Takahashi of Undercover, he and Takahiro Miyashita of The Soloist worked on this shared show pretty much in isolation. Yes, they agreed on a symmetrically reflective theme—order/disorder against disorder/order—beforehand. And, yes, they consulted on the mutual finale that saw a line of models in black synthetic jeans and crop-top harnesses emerge from Miyashita’s backstage, and an opposing line of models in white floor-length pleated skirts emerge from Takahashi’s. These were the overlaps: the folds in the show structure that contained them both at this remarkable Pitti presentation. But beyond them they had no idea what each other was planning in their respective studios: “[Jun] only saw [Takahiro’s] collection two days ago!” said Chieri Hazu, Takahashi’s translator and right-hand woman.

To review them, then, demands the collections be treated as they were created: in isolation, just as they are in the Paris showroom of Michèle Montagne, where these designers normally show their menswear. Alongside each other, but apart.

Takahashi’s last women’s show played with the idea of twins and culminated in a bloodcurdling finale re-creation of The Shining’s Grady sisters. Here, he seized upon another unsettling Stanley Kubrick movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, yet at first the reference was repressed. To Joy Division’s “Atmosphere,” a model emerged in fine-knit gray: a cap, a sweater, and a pleated skirt. Then there was a navy version over a white shirt, and then two check iterations with an inbuilt, perhaps metallic-mix, stiffness, and then a final skirt-y look in beige, possibly velvet, possibly terry, that betrayed the first Kubrick reference: a shoulder-slung bag on which was written Caution: Contains Explosive Bolts, a sample from the writing on the escape hatches of the Apollo. For fans of the film, the references continued from there, woven first among looks that included heavily flocked fleece suiting and tracksuits, backwoodsman-in-summer forestry ensembles, HAL 9000 LED-eye fanny packs, and a series of raincoats emblazoned with slowly dawning warnings of digital chaos to come. Warning. Human Error. Computer Malfunction. Then a swerve to printed pieces showing the moon obelisk and 2001’s hapless crew. The final piece was a tattered-hem lilac gown and loose pajama suit with embroideries of the character Poole adrift in space, while the finale itself featured a line of five “astronauts” in primary-color quilted jackets with backlit face masks and zippered jersey pants.