This summer, Yasuko Furuta found herself in Paris during the height of a heat wave—and staying in an apartment without air-conditioning. As a result, the designer spent much of her time by an open window or wandering the nearby streets, observing how Parisians dressed for the heat. Unlike her hometown of Tokyo, where, even with the intense humidity, people tend to remain covered up—“A protective gesture,” Furuta suggested—in Paris, the looks leaned a little more risqué. “People really dressed with freedom and not a lot of fabric—very different to Tokyo,” she recalled. “So I wanted to find something between those two cities, to mix them together and do layers, but in a lighter way.”