How did Glass Beams, a failed dress and Jun Takahashi’s obsession with oil painting form one of Undercover’s most anticipated menswear return in years? 

The story begins one season earlier. While developing the illuminated terrarium dresses that closed Undercover SS24 womenswear show, Takahashi originally wanted to create a transparent dress containing clouds floating inside its skirt. The experiment failed when the material could not hold the effect he imagined, eventually evolving into the glowing dresses filled with flowers and butterflies. A year later, clouds would return.

By then, Takahashi was also becoming increasingly serious about painting. After years of working privately in oils, he held his first dedicated exhibition, They See More Than You Can See, in Tokyo in 2023. Spring Summer 2025 "Lost Cloud" itself takes its name from one of Takahashi’s paintings. The original work was painted on linen, and he preserved that by reproducing the image only on linen garments. 

This season also marked Takahashi return to the Paris menswear stage for the first time since January 2020. Rather than basing the season on a single film, musician or subculture, he imagined a fictional tribe without a fixed nationality, gender or provenance. European tailoring, sportswear, ceremonial dress, technical clothing and womenswear were folded into a single wardrobe, reflecting what Takahashi described as becoming "borderless." The runway moved from loose, painter-like linen suits and cropped trousers into increasingly elaborate layers of skirts, robes, lace, veils, jewelry and flowing fabrics.

That idea found an unlikely counterpart in Glass Beams, the Melbourne psychedelic trio Takahashi had discovered via Instagram. Led by Rajan Silva, the band mixes South Asian musical influences with psychedelic rock, funk and electronic music while performing anonymously behind elaborate jeweled masks. Takahashi was drawn to precisely this collision of seemingly distant references and commissioned the group to record a special performance for the show. 

Seen in the very last look of the show, this Painted Linen Jacket features Takahashi's 2024 oil painting titled Future Days, Lost Children.