Massachusetts museum explores innovative Japanese fashion

22 Nov '13

2 min read

A celebration of quirky, out-of-the-box and somewhat futuristic-style creations, designed by some of the most avant-garde names in the Japanese fashion industry, is on display at an exhibition, taking place at the Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts.

Dubbed as the ‘Future Beauty: Avant-Garde Japanese Fashion’, the event aims to highlight the contribution of Japanese designers like Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto in reshaping the early 1980’s fashion.

Scheduled to run through January 26, 2014, the 80-piece exhibit showcases how the designers, of that era, redefined fashion by creating voluminous flowing silhouettes against the narrow sculpted forms of western couture.

Focusing on the inter-dependant relationship shared between art, design and fashion, the display also emphasizes the innovative technique, popularised by those design talents, of reducing colours in order to highlight the cuts and proportions in clothes.

Mainly sourced from the Kyoto Costume Institute, Kyoto, Japan, the featured pieces include Kawakubo’s famous rebellious skirt-and-sweater set with a huge tulle-stuffed pouf at the back and the Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body ensemble, featuring a printed tight-fit nylon crop-top and tube skirt attached with a padded bulge on the back, from the designer’s spring-1997 collection.

Also, Junya Watanabe’s ‘urban survival’ toile dress, replete with bondage straps and built-in hip panniers, as well as Issey Miyake’s 3-D garment from his ‘1 2 3 5’ collection, designed in 2010, have been included in the exhibit.

The event additionally showcases a 1960’s maxidress by veteran designer Hanae Mori and a seamless face-obscuring polyurethane bodysuit, designed by Tamae Hirokawa in 2007, for Lady Gaga.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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