KA WA KEY Spring/Summer 2022

KA WA KEY SS22 is inspired by ‘Butterfly Lovers’ a Chinese legend of a tragic love story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai.

KA WA KEY is a London-based gender-fluid label by design duo Key Chow and Jarno Leppanen. The designer duo re-imagines traditional textile crafts using sustainable materials to rework everyday casual wear.

ka wa key ss kodd magazine mode fashion défilé show

ka wa key ss kodd magazine mode fashion défilé show

The lovers’ spirits merge in the form of a pair of butterflies who fly away together never to be separated again. The gradient colours, prints and textures are inspired by the fragile and beautiful wings of butterflies. The knits are made using bespoke and sustainable space-dyed yarns. Devoré, one of the KA WA KEY’s signature techniques, have been used to create romantic transparent textures. “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it”. This Oscar Wilde quotation describes well KA WA KEY NYFW digital presentation short film.

ka wa key ss kodd magazine mode fashion défilé show

ka wa key ss kodd magazine mode fashion défilé show

ka wa key ss kodd magazine mode fashion défilé show

ka wa key ss kodd magazine mode fashion défilé show

This season KA WA KEY collaborated with Finnish SPINNOVA®, creating a small capsule collection using SPINNOVA® fabrics and yarns. The sustainable and fully circular SPINNOVA® fibre is made out of wood or waste, produced without harmful chemicals and with minimal water usage and CO2 emissions. The SPINNOVA® fibre uses 99% less water and produces nearly 65% less CO2 emissions than cotton production.

ka wa key ss kodd magazine mode fashion défilé show

ka wa key ss kodd magazine mode fashion défilé show

ka wa key ss kodd magazine mode fashion défilé show

KA WA KEY are H&M Design Award Finalist, International Woolmark Prize 2018 semifinalist, Center of Fashion Enterprise Fashion Pioneer Program graduate, Royal College of Art’s Creative Brand accelerator programme graduate.