Future Beauty 30 Years of Japanese Fashion

Future Beauty 30 Years of Japanese Fashion

The first showcase of avant-garde Japanese fashion from designers (from the 1980's to present) that influenced the gems of the industry today. Infiltrating the fashion industry in the late 20th century where designers such as Yohji Yamamoto 'redefined' the style and mindset of the industry to another level. A show where the likes of shadows,flatness,tradition and innovation was combined with deconstruction and the minds of exquisite masters of their critique turning fashion essentially into another form of art.

"Monochrome palette and an entirely new decorative language – holes, rips, frays and tears – emerging from the stuff of fabric itself"

Japanese Fashion and its creators varied from the norm and creations of its time. Implementing a completely new and outrageous concept to the world of design. Flat and embellished designs replaced with 3D organza's of fabrics and monochrome. An era where 2D and 3D where incorporated into one garment on an out of this world level. The concept of creating fashion not for wear but as a piece of art, implementing structure and reconstruction into garments was almost a taboo that no designer had ventured into until then. Even the likes of Alexander McQueen was greatly influenced by such garments and designers, the concept of creating art through fashion and not so much for wear and for the everyday was somewhat a trademark of his. Japanese fashion designers revolutionized clothing!

Being traced in every nook and cranny of every designers influential pieces is a Japanese avant-garde form. The 1980's was their big break essentially, runway's portraying philosophical and artistic elements,expressing ground breaking innovations, creating a story and a definition through a garment. For example the famous Rei Kawakubu's sack dress representing poverty and concealing rather then revealing the female form.

The art of bonning can be seen in many garments of this time and big,elaborate designs as shown below bonning has been used to create a large layered skirt, the epitome of a Disney Cinderella ball gown. Issey Miyake often was quite fascinated with the movement of a body and the way he can implement the movement of a body into his designs, also the idea of creating a garment using one piece of very simple cloth. Using the body as part of the canvas rather than the canvas itself, meaning his garments flowed and became one with the body.

"Once again referring to the idea of structure in Japanese fashion a lot of which designers explored the more architectural side of fashion as many weren't afraid to create the unconventional."