1970s-1990s The Japanese Avant-garde

[runner]

you're welcome softgrey




"my aim from the beginning is to defy the public,
to draw any response from them.
it doesn't matter to me whether it is a good one or bad"
-rei

 

[Pop Dealer]

i think comme des garcons are in this style...

 

[adi]

i'm not so familiar with the japanese designers but what i have seen, it is very beautful IMO. this thread is interesting

 

[skot4mc]

Heres some photos of an exhibition I went to this afternoon. It was all about geometric/abstract shapes used in fashion…quite interesting.

The Issey Miyake and Comme des Garcons pieces were in my opinion the best, so I thought I would post them here...I love this thread.

All information was provided by the NGV International.


Comme des Garcons: Jacket, short-sleeved jacket, dress and shoes – 2001 spring-summer.
-printed polyester and cotton blend jacket, printed cuprammonium rayon jacket, printed silk chiffon dress, printed cotton tape, leather shoes with plastic tape





The Comme des Garcons 2001 spring-summer collection marked a clear departure from 1990s minimalist fashion towards the colour and pattern saturated styles of the early years of the twenty-first century. Rei Kawakubo samples and mixes graphics that reference the visual illusion of 1960s Op art and military camouflage. The latter was originally devised to disguise the wearer by mimicking the organic patterns of bark. In Kawakubo’s work, camouflage has been given an Op art treatment and transformed from an organic pattern into a geometric composition of rectangles in shades of green.

 

[skot4mc]

Issey Miyake – Dress c. 2000
-pleated polyester




This Dress is disarmingly simple yet it has been accomplished with considerable exactitude. Pieces of black and white fabric have been sewn together and then made into a garment that has been finely pleated. The pleating condenses the cloth into a diamond pattern and the skirt into a circle. The success of this work depends on the pleating technique that was developed by the Miyake Design Studio in 1989 and refined during the early 1990s.

 

[skot4mc]

Issey Miyake: Flying saucer dress – spring/summer 1994
-pleated polyester



Issey Miyake has consistently used geometric shapes in his work. The success of the Flying saucer dress depends on a pleating technique that was developed by the Miyake Design Studio in 1989 and refined during the early 1990s. Traditionally, fabric is pleated before being cut or sewn into a garment. Miyake’s innovation was to pleat the entire garment after it had been sewn, thereby creating an effect that was no longer just embellishment to the fabric’s surface but which also supported the structure of the garment. In his work, Miyake’s process enables the circular tiers to retain their crisp outlines in or to expand and contract like a paper lantern.

ps- obviously, i took the photos, sorry some are a little unclear.

 

[travolta]

runner, thanks for the article.

slightly off-topic - are you a fan of the japanese band called The Boredoms?

 

[runner]

thanks skot4mc for the posts and the photos!



you're welcome travolta
nice to see you around!
no, not in particular
did you see the pic of the look Yohji did when he was a Bunka college student in the thread called so-en award?

 

[skot4mc]

Yohji Yamamoto signed lithographs. Recently auctioned off for charity.
source - elle.com

 

[runner]

thanks again skot!







http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/komachi/beauty/fashion/20060901ok05.htm



Rei and Junya, the president and vice president of the company, are just holding a special exhibition only for the staff which consist of about 500 at CdG Aoyama head office.
it is entitled "for comme des garcons" where 93 pieces they have made so far are recreated in toile for this exhibit and the life-size patterns of them which they dug from the storage are on the floor, ceilling and walls.

the dress which look striking is made by putting together some pieces of square cloths
or complicated one made by more than 80 pieces of patterns, etc
undersurface efforts which are not easy to see from the finished clothes are expressed there through two dimentions and three dimentions.

"for me the design is a work where I try hard to seize something new in the darkness,
the image becoming concrete gradually and coming out as patterns." says Rei "making not only clothes but also things in general tends to go toward the easy way today. but you cannot create new designs that way. my aim here is to tell them about that and I want them to really feel it"

 

[nqth]

^ thanks for the news and translation Runner:-)

 

[softgrey]

skot- i need to point out that those drawings are not from the 80's...
they are from 2006
and we have a thread about them...
i will look around for it...and try to move the post there...



runner...
thank you so much for translating ...
i understand very well...i think...

seeing the pattern is really cool...
it's great that she tries to nurture and inspire and motivate her staff this way...

 

[markie]

I can't think of anything worthwhile to add to the discussion, but I just thought I'd say everything here in the thread is gorgeous... interesting articles.

 

[skot4mc]

thank you runner.

 

[Honey~Blade]

Thanks for the info runner!

I have an interview from the New Yorker with Rei. It's really interesting and funny, but it's long don't know if I can be bothered to type it up.

 

[iyemstoopid]

those images are absolutely gorgeous...

 

[hypnos]

thanks for the great pix Runner!! I'm sure everyone here would love to see more from that exhibition, if anyone had access to it; I wonder if anyone on FS works for CDG?

 

[nqth]

Thanks for the info runner!

I have an interview from the New Yorker with Rei. It's really interesting and funny, but it's long don't know if I can be bothered to type it up.

Oh Honey:-) Could you please scan it, or make a foto of it.
Many thanks:-)

 

[nqth]

I found this from
http://www.dantewoo.com/blog/archives/2005/07.shtml

japanese girls still tend to sow their wild fashion oats before they settle down with a mate and disappear, if not into the shadows, into a chanel suit. but kawakubo started out making clothes, in the seventies, she said, for a woman "who is not swayed by what her husband thinks." (she was then deep into her black period, and her devotees were known in tokyo as "the crows.") two decades later, and shortly after her own wedding, to adrian joffe—a south african-born student of asian culture ten years her junior, who is the president of comme des garcons international—she told an interview from elle that "one's lifestyle should not be affected by the formality of marriage." [...]

from the beginning of her career, she has insisted that the only way to know her is "through my clothes." her employees, including joffe, treat her with a gingerly deference that seems to be a mixture of awe for her talent and forbearance with her moods. [...]

each of the [guerilla] stores is an ephemeral installation that opens without fanfare and closes after a year. their decorating budgets are less than the price of some handbags at gucci and prada, and original fixtures, including raw cinder block and peeling wallpaper, are left as they are found. brecht might have approved the poetic clothes and the poletarian mise en scene, if not the insurrectionary conceit. "but the word 'guerilla' as rei understands it isn't political," joffe says. "it refers to a small group of like-minded spirits at odds with the majority. she's fascinated by the amish, for example, and the orthodox jews."

- judith thurman, "the misfit: rei kawakubo," new yorker july 4, 2005

 

[travolta]

Have any of you seen Ready To Wear? There is a little Issey Miyake footage...