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Found this quite interesting, not the articles itself, I guess, which is pretty obvious, but the designers they quoted.
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The Japanese influence on what we wear
By Mark C. O’Flaherty
Published: October 2 2009 23:14 | Last updated: October 2 2009 23:14
When Rei Kawakubo shows her spring/summer 2010 Comme des Garçons women’s wear collection in Paris today, it will mark the brand’s 40th year in the fashion business. Next year, Issey Miyake follows suit and, in spring 2011, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum will commemorate 30 years of Yohji Yamamoto.
Once revolutionaries who stunned the French fashion world with their first prêt-à-porter shows in the 1980s, these Japanese designers have become the establishment, paving the way for a new generation of eastern designers including Jun Takahashi of Undercover, Junya Watanabe and Tao Kurihara of the Comme des Garçons stable, and Limi Feu, Yamamoto’s daughter.
But how exactly has the Japanese aesthetic changed what we wear? “When the Japanese arrived in France, western fashion was surprisingly conventional,” says Claire Wilcox, fashion curator at the V&A . “They had a huge impact, creating a disruption of construction.” By which she means unstructured, deconstructed and skewed garments, acting as the antithesis of an era defined by the sculpted shoulder pad and Alaïa’s body-hugging garments. “It’s about opposition to body shape,” says Wilcox. “A Miyake Pleats Please dress moves in opposition to the natural form, and Kawakubo’s bumps collection was a total distortion of the human body.” Similarly confrontational was their absence of colour palette – everything was in black.
“I was just finishing my studies when [Japanese designers] had their European debut,” recalls Ann Demeulemeester, the Belgian designer. “It was a brave new step in fashion – the beginning of a new freedom for me as a designer and as a woman.” Demeulemeester’s aesthetic has continued to work in parallel with the promise of the Japanese revolution, shunning trend, embracing the avant-garde, and focusing on monochrome, “because, like an architect, new structures are clearer in black and white”, she says.
John Richmond, who started the 3D Richmond Cornejo label in 1984 with fellow London clubland prodigy Maria Cornejo, says: “When I was growing up you couldn’t find black clothes. It was only with the Japanese that black really started. I love using black because I grew up in Manchester where the light always makes colour look grim.”
For Cornejo, who recently celebrated 10 years of her New York-based Zero label, the influence of the Japanese was in “their cutting, and the fact that they also broke new ground.”
Similarly, designer Rick Owens, whose artful deconstruction shares the Japanese spirit, found their outsider status as much of an inspiration as their cuts. “For a 19-year-old art student goth, it was illuminating to see that the uptight fashion world could accommodate a weirdo,” he says. “If Halston gave the world the white butterfly orchid, Comme gave us black leggings.”
Professor Wendy Dagworthy of the Royal College of Art, says: “The influence of the kimono was definitely apparent. They took traditional dress and did it in a very modern way. They also have a clear love of western fashion and culture. One of my favourite Yamamoto collections was in the 1980s and shown as an homage to 1960s Cardin: very moulded with lots of holes cut out of it – the shapes were very beautiful.”
Bradley Quinn, a fashion author and curator, says: “Their work has an integrity that western fashion lacks. It is more about nature than artifice.”
Designer Hussein Chalayan agrees.“The most important influence on their work is the philosophy of wabi-sabi, a thesis about the beauty of the moment and the actuality of being,” he says. “It is the magic of being Japanese that could never be understood by anyone but the Japanese themselves.”
When Yamamoto showed a range of Adidas trainers in 2001, it seemed shocking – two incompatible worlds colliding – but a year later he launched Y-3 and sports wear and the high street didn’t seem like such distant universes any more.
“It makes perfect sense,” says Claire Wilcox. “The sports shoe in particular is a perfect match – the very idea of high heels with Japanese fashion is ridiculous.”
LINK
The Japanese influence on what we wear
By Mark C. O’Flaherty
Published: October 2 2009 23:14 | Last updated: October 2 2009 23:14
When Rei Kawakubo shows her spring/summer 2010 Comme des Garçons women’s wear collection in Paris today, it will mark the brand’s 40th year in the fashion business. Next year, Issey Miyake follows suit and, in spring 2011, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum will commemorate 30 years of Yohji Yamamoto.
Once revolutionaries who stunned the French fashion world with their first prêt-à-porter shows in the 1980s, these Japanese designers have become the establishment, paving the way for a new generation of eastern designers including Jun Takahashi of Undercover, Junya Watanabe and Tao Kurihara of the Comme des Garçons stable, and Limi Feu, Yamamoto’s daughter.
But how exactly has the Japanese aesthetic changed what we wear? “When the Japanese arrived in France, western fashion was surprisingly conventional,” says Claire Wilcox, fashion curator at the V&A . “They had a huge impact, creating a disruption of construction.” By which she means unstructured, deconstructed and skewed garments, acting as the antithesis of an era defined by the sculpted shoulder pad and Alaïa’s body-hugging garments. “It’s about opposition to body shape,” says Wilcox. “A Miyake Pleats Please dress moves in opposition to the natural form, and Kawakubo’s bumps collection was a total distortion of the human body.” Similarly confrontational was their absence of colour palette – everything was in black.
“I was just finishing my studies when [Japanese designers] had their European debut,” recalls Ann Demeulemeester, the Belgian designer. “It was a brave new step in fashion – the beginning of a new freedom for me as a designer and as a woman.” Demeulemeester’s aesthetic has continued to work in parallel with the promise of the Japanese revolution, shunning trend, embracing the avant-garde, and focusing on monochrome, “because, like an architect, new structures are clearer in black and white”, she says.
John Richmond, who started the 3D Richmond Cornejo label in 1984 with fellow London clubland prodigy Maria Cornejo, says: “When I was growing up you couldn’t find black clothes. It was only with the Japanese that black really started. I love using black because I grew up in Manchester where the light always makes colour look grim.”
For Cornejo, who recently celebrated 10 years of her New York-based Zero label, the influence of the Japanese was in “their cutting, and the fact that they also broke new ground.”
Similarly, designer Rick Owens, whose artful deconstruction shares the Japanese spirit, found their outsider status as much of an inspiration as their cuts. “For a 19-year-old art student goth, it was illuminating to see that the uptight fashion world could accommodate a weirdo,” he says. “If Halston gave the world the white butterfly orchid, Comme gave us black leggings.”
Professor Wendy Dagworthy of the Royal College of Art, says: “The influence of the kimono was definitely apparent. They took traditional dress and did it in a very modern way. They also have a clear love of western fashion and culture. One of my favourite Yamamoto collections was in the 1980s and shown as an homage to 1960s Cardin: very moulded with lots of holes cut out of it – the shapes were very beautiful.”
Bradley Quinn, a fashion author and curator, says: “Their work has an integrity that western fashion lacks. It is more about nature than artifice.”
Designer Hussein Chalayan agrees.“The most important influence on their work is the philosophy of wabi-sabi, a thesis about the beauty of the moment and the actuality of being,” he says. “It is the magic of being Japanese that could never be understood by anyone but the Japanese themselves.”
When Yamamoto showed a range of Adidas trainers in 2001, it seemed shocking – two incompatible worlds colliding – but a year later he launched Y-3 and sports wear and the high street didn’t seem like such distant universes any more.
“It makes perfect sense,” says Claire Wilcox. “The sports shoe in particular is a perfect match – the very idea of high heels with Japanese fashion is ridiculous.”
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