Future Beauty: Avant-Garde Japanese Fashion exhibit

03 Jan '14

2 min read

The out-of-the-box, futuristic Japanese fashion, which presented itself as a revolting contrast to the form-fitting conventional western couture of the 1980s and 90s, is the subject of the Massachusetts-based Peabody Essex Museum’s ongoing exhibit Future Beauty: Avant-Garde Japanese Fashion.

Scheduled to run through January 26, 2014, the event offers an insight into the revolutionary form, technique, material and approach adopted by the rising stars, such as Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto, who helped in re-defining the early 1980’s fashion.

With an expansive display of more than 100 dresses, skirts, gowns and suits, the exhibits aim to highlight the subtlety of Japanese fashion known for its graveness, asymmetry, roughness, simplicity and unique yet surprisingly pleasant imperfections.

The event also helps the viewers to differentiate the highly-innovative opposite style sensibilities of Japan from the European and American haute couture characteristics, which included figure-hugging silhouettes, impeccable finish, almost imperceptible tailoring and a complementary colour palette, of that era.

Mainly sourced from the Kyoto Costume Institute, Kyoto, Japan, the featured pieces have been curated by the museum’s chief curator James B. and coordinating curator Mary Lou Hawkes.

The exhibits 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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