The Global Impact of japanese fashion in museum, Orientalistyka - materiały
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Fashion Theory,
Volume 12, Issue 1, pp, 95-120
[X>1: 10,2752/175174108X269586
Reprints available directly from the Publishers.
Photocopying permitted by licence only
Exhibiting Asia:
The Global Impact
of Japanese
Fashion in
Museums and
Galleries
Patricia Mears
Abstract
Patncia Mears is the deputy
director tor the museum at
FIT. Select exhibitions and
publications include
Fancy
Feet liBm), XXI&me del
(2003),
Ralph Rucci: The Art
of Weightlessn^s
(2007), and
Madame Gr^s: The Sphinx
of Fashion
(2008). Additional
publications are
Halston
(2001)
and
Skin and Bones
[2006),
Japanese fashion creators, mainly Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo,
and
Yohji Yamamoto, began to present their revolutionary concepts on
the runways of Paris in the early 1970s; their designs had a profound
impact and did much to change the direction of avant-garde fashion.
The presentation of Japanese fashion in museum and gallery exhibitions
over the past thirty years has also been influential. Exhibitions organized
by leading Japanese institutions, such as the Kyoto Costume Institute,
contributed to the existing historical understanding of this Asian
country's impact on western art and design. Other exhibitions advanced
the technical possibilities of presenting fashion in a static environment.
96
Patricia Mears
Issey Miyake in particular used high technology to animate many of his
best-known designs. These Japanese designers, and the work of their
younger compatriots Junya Watanabe and Jun Takahashi, continue to
be directional. Curators around the world regularly incorporate them in
inter-disciplinary exhibitions that juxtapose or align fashion with other
design disciplines (architecture, industrial design, textiles, etc.) and even
fine art.
KEYWORDS: Japan, Japonism, fashion, exhibitions, museums
Introduction
When Issey Miyake and, later, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto
presented their first collections to an international audience in the 1970s
and 1980s, they redefined contemporary fashion. Their revolutionary
design vocabulary, drawn neither from traditional Japanese dress nor
from conventional Western clothing, was hugely influential in changing
the aesthetics of fashion. By pushing the houndaries of fashion design,
these members of the Japanese avant-garde extended their influence
into other fields as well. They are widely regarded as creative artists
by art critics and museum curators, and their work has been enthusi-
astically collected and incorporated work into innovative art and design
exhibitions. This article will focus on three of the many exhibitions to
feature the work of these Japanese designers (and a few others, such as
Junya Watanahe):
Japonism in Fashion, Issey Miyake: Making Things,
and
2leme del: Mode in Japon.
The first, organized by Japanese
curators at the Kyoto Costume Institute, was a meticulously researched
historical overview of Japan's impact on Western fashion; the second
was a monographic exhibition organized by the designer himself; the
third was a site-specific reflection on Japanese fashion by Western
curators for a French museum.
1 have chosen these exhibitions in part becau.se they were generated by
three distinctly different institutions and profess to convey completely
different viewpoints of avant-garde fashion from Japan, and also
because I personally had the opportunity to work on each of them.
The observations in this article thus reflect my first-hand experiences
and my "insider" point of view, as well as my longstanding work on
contemporary Japanese fashion and fashion designers.
Though each of these exhibitions was distinctive, they also shared
important similarities. Each was organized by a fashion specialist or
group of specialists, whether fashion curators or the designers them-
selves. This immediately distinguishes them from the many art and
design exhibitions, organized by curators with no training in fashion
history or design, that have incorporated Japanese fashions with vary-
ing degree of success. These three exhibitions were firmly within the
world of museum-based fashion exhibitions. Another common thread
Exhibiting Asia: The Global Impact of Japanese Fashion in Museums and Galleries
97
is that these exhibitions had to take account of the context within which
the
works
of living
Japanese designers
were often exhibited
in
Japan
itself. In Japan,, museums and galleries tend to valorize the prestige of
Western art and design, and to display Japanese creative work as being
outside the world mainstream. As Akiko Fukai, director of
the
Kyoto
Costume Institute, has suggested, the Japanese view of their own culture
requires validation from abroad (personal communication, 2002). Thus,
exhibitions of Japanese fashion organized in Europe or the United States
had, and continue to have, a special role to play in lending such work a
kind of gravitas and legitunacy.
Japanese Designers: The First Wave
Erom the early 1970s to the early 1990s, Issey Miyake was one of the
world's most innovative fashion creators. Along with Kenzo Takeda
(known simply as Kenzo), Miyake was among the "first wave" of
Japanese designers who capitalized on the great social changes of the late
1960s and the growing influence of ready-ro-wear clothing. They were
also part of a generation of creative talent born just before or during
World War II who collectively were able to infuse a diverse spectrum
of original elements into many creative disciplines such as architecture,
graphic design, and film making.
While the separate pilgrimages of Miyake and Kenzo to Paris can
be conceived in generational terms, the trailblazer who first came to
international attention as a Japanese designer on the world stage was
Hanae Mori. Madame Mori went to Paris in 1961, presented her first
overseas collection to a New York audience in 1965, and became,
in 1977, the first Asian to be admitted to the most exclusive fashion
organization in the world, the Paris-based
Chamhre Syndicate de la
Haute Couture.
While some elements of Japanese culture are readily
evident in some of her creations (her kimono-inspired coats, for
example, and her use of such traditional motifs as butterflies), she was
nonetheless a classicist who more closely followed the conventions of
Western dress in silhouette and construction.
Kenzo's first collection in Paris in 1970 marked a significant departure
from the conservative Western-oriented fashion designs typified by
Mori. By creating garments made from yards of billowing cotton fabric
smocked and controlled across the shoulders and breastbone, he tapped
into some less obvious elements of Japanese dress, appropriated and
reinterpreted them, and ultimately restructured the silhouette of modern
fashion. By going on to use a plethora of folkloric styles, bright floral
fabrics, and variations on the Japanese peasant short kimono known
as the
happi
coat, Kenzo not only presaged the Seventies and Eighties
trend for oversized sweaters and boxy silhouettes but also served as a
source of inspiration for couturiers like Yves Saint Laurent.
98
Patricia Mears
Issey Miyake began to produce and show his designs around the same
time as Kenzo. But rather than incorporate Kenzo-style bright colors
and breezy prints, Miyake pioneered the use of ethnographic materials
such as Asian
ikats.
He showed a particular interest in fabrics that
had a rough-bewn look and were hand-made by rural people. He was
also one of the first globally influential designers to find creative uses
for the latest, technologically advanced synthetics being produced in
Japan. The use of such fabrics combined with innovative construction
techniques allowed Miyake to make some of the most extraordinary
garments ever seen.
Born in Hiroshima in 1938, Miyake witnessed the devastation that
followed the dropping of an atomic bomb on his hometown. The designer
has consistently refused to discuss his early experiences, however, and
what (if any) influence the traumatic events of his youth may have had
on his design philosophy is speculative. Miyake is often described as
the most optimistic and forward-looking designer of his generation. A
vibrant example of this can be seen in his fantastic pleated creations that
morph from flat pieces of cloth into three-dimensional geodesic forms;
these garments were revelations when they first appeared in the late
1980s. More recently, his A-POC (an acronym for "A Piece of Cloth")
line of seemingly endless numbers of identically laser-seamed dresses
that arrive at the store attached and rolled into bales of tubular jersey
knit, actually allow each wearer to customize her garment as it is cut
away from the others.
Miyake was also one of the first fashion designers to document his
work and creative process in a series of publications and exhibitions.
These projects were both creative acts in their own right and a clever
way for Miyake to recast himself as a creator worthy of consideration
by artists in other fields. Key projects include his first book,
Issey
Miyake: East Meets West
(1978); a series of collaborative publications,
beginning in the 1980s, in which Miyake's work was photographed hy
Irving Penn; and catalogs that accompanied exhibitions such as
Ten
Sen Men
(1990) and
Isamu Noguchi & Issey Miyake, Arizona
(1997).
Interestingly, Miyake has heen the only Japanese fashion designer
to document his career in such detail. While others have mounted
exhibitions and published books on their work, Miyake far outpaces
them. He was also one of the first to create a comprehensive archive of
his work, housed in a warehouse custom-made for that purpose.
Kawakubo and Yamamoto
Following the success of Mori, Kenzo, and Miyake, Rei Kawakubo
and Yohji Yamamoto presented their first, groundbreaking collections
in Paris to an international audience in the early 1980s. Although
press coverage of these collections was often negative, most critics
Exhibiting Asia: The Global Impact ot Japanese Fashion in Museums and Galleries
99
acknowledged that Kawakubo and Yamamoto were creating something
truly new. Their clothes completely broke away from the contemporary
reworking of earlier modes that has dominated fashion design in recent
decades.
Because the distinguishing features of these clothes included delibe-
rate holes woven into crinkled fabrics, irregular hemlines, side seams
that were often ragged and unfinished, and loose-fitting layers that fell
aimlessly over the body, the French early on referred to the look as "Le
Destroy." To some Western observers the clothes resembled the garb of
homeless people or survivors of an apocalypse. Many critics wondered
what, if anything, was "Japanese" about these designs. Hostile journalists
referred to the work of Kawakubo and Yamamoto as "ragged chic" or
the clothes of a "Hiroshima bag lady." Other journalists were more
receptive. One noted:
The fashions that have swept In from the East represent a totally
different attitude toward how clothes should look from that long
established here. They aim to conceal, not reveal the body. They
do not try to seduce through color or texture. They cannot be
described in conventional terms because their shape is fluid, just
as their proportions are over scale. Where the hemline is placed,
or where the waistline is marked is immaterial... (Morris 1982).
Though Kawakubo and Yamamoto are often discussed in tandem,
as a pair with a similar and shared aesthetic vision, they are startiingly
different in their creative output. It is true that they are close in age (she
was born in 1942 and he in 1943), came to Paris together in 1981, and
did, for a few years, express a parallel vision. Also, more than any other
of the great fashion designers, Kawakubo and Yamamoto together stand
as the preeminent exponents of Japan's collective artistic contributions
to the world of design. But they view the creative process from opposing
perspectives.
Born in 1942, Rei Kawakubo was the daughter of a professor, and she
studied literature and philosophy at Keio University before becoming a
fashion stylist in 1967. Dissatisfied with the kinds of clothing available,
she began making her own. She incorporated her design company in
1973, calling it Comme des Gannons. Kawakubo has said that she chose
the name because the sonorous quality of the French words (meaning
"Uke the boys") appealed to her. But, of course, the company name also
immediately brings to mind a host of gender issues.
Because Kawakubo has no formal fashion training, she relies on a
loyal and skilled staff of assistant designers, drapers, and patternmakers
to assist her in the actual work of design. Over the years she has
gathered around her a number of talented younger design colleagues,
notably Junya Watanabe, Jun Takahashi, and Tao Kurihara. Though the
creative structure of Kawakubo's company is unusual, she has followed
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