Tomorrow, Kunihiko Morinaga will present his 25th Anrealage collection in Paris. From experiments with proportion and distortion to high-tech feats involving augmented reality, digital projections onto fabrics, and surfaces changing states, every season has brought new meaning to avant-garde—yet always within the realm of wearable.

To mark this milestone of seemingly limitless ingenuity, Morinaga has partnered with Sarah Andelman, who has dreamed up clever activations and playful pop-up projects via her Just An Idea consultancy for the likes of Lego, Starbucks, K-Way, Art Basel, and most recently, the Snoopy in Style NYC designer collaborations.

Their shared concept, Just An Realage—such a clever portmanteau—comprises a retrospective presentation within a transformed gallery setting, as well as a gift shop that riffs on the brand’s foundational interest in the Latin alphabet. Simply look at the logo and you’ll see how the composition of diagonal, intersecting lines reveals not only an A, but also a backward Z.

The 26 curated letter-to-object pairings span Japanese cultural items and collaborations. An apple for A might seem obvious, except that this one is sculpted in luscious red marble.

F unfolds as a furoshiki, the traditional Japanese wrapping cloth, though these were printed with Kyocera’s FOREARTH sustainable inkjet printer (near-zero water waste). O, one of Andelman’s favorites, is a protective omamori charm with a twist; take it outside and the white surface turns multi-colored.

There are staples—a notepad (N), a bag of rice (R), and a roll of Tape (T)—alongside a collectible Bearbrick (B) and charm jewelry (J) made with Eyefunny.

There were likely fewer possibilities for letters like X, Y and Z. Yet a soft travel case with an X-Ray print of toiletries; a yo-yo bordered with the alphabet from Japanese games company Freshthings; and a monogrammed metal zester add variety to the mix.

And certain letters proved especially symbolic: Q is a patchwork quilt bedcover of fabrics from all 25 collections, pieced together by hand. H, a hanger with real flowers encased in its form, is both poetic and quotidian.

“It’s a hanger that somehow encloses time,” Morinaga said of the recurring theme.

On a video call with both of them, Andelman said she appreciates how the experimental aspect of Anrealage is rooted in a broader philosophy around clothes. “There is always this balance of something about craftsmanship, about repair, about the traditional—to keep clothes and give them second life,” she said. “But then season after season, we have seen the [integration] of technology like the LED fabric. So I got very inspired.”

From this Friday until next Monday, both the exhibition and shop will occupy the ground floor of 76 rue de Turenne (aka Gallery Perrotin, just not part of its programming). The retrospective will feature looks from every collection since 2014 on a slowly rotating carousel with related objects—the Doraemon ball shirt from 2024—suspended overhead.

The ambient music playing throughout is courtesy of Thomas Bengalter of Daft Punk, who met Morinaga on a ballet project and subsequently composed the soundtracks for two seasons (fall 2025 and spring 2026). This, in turn, solved what to make with V: the music is being released on a vinyl that was pressed at The Vinyl Factory outside of London.

For Morinaga, the anniversary project underscores what has been the Anrealage philosophy since the start: a blurring of opposites: ordinary and extraordinary, unreal and real. More surprising was the realization that the life of a brand is not necessarily a linear path along the alphabet, but possibly cyclical, like the hand of a clock completing its turn (W, as it happens, is a watch created with LAWA Design that is ringed with letters instead of numerals).

According to this logic, he explains, “When A and Z overlap, 26 becomes 25.”

Asked whether they think someone might purchase the entire alphabet, they laughed, as though never considering this scenario. For Morinaga, the items are simply meant to be different, “to create new possibilities and fantasy.” There will also be select pieces from the current ready-to-wear collection for sale; here, people will see how the runway looks get dialed down and deflated for everyday.

Of the collection he will present tomorrow—officially the 25th—he teased at exploring ‘skins’ in the broadest sense—from scales and feathers of living things to digital skins and skins in gaming—using both technology and techniques that can only be done by hand. “Something like the phoenix that can be reborn or rewritten over and over again,” he said, confirming that he is already envisioning the next 25 years.